Why are sleeper buses prone to infernos

In the early hours of December 16, a multi-vehicle pileup on the Yamuna Expressway in Mathura caused by fog-induced low visibility killed at least 13 people as a result of the fire caused by the successive crashes.

- Soumya Chatterjee

While the crash involved three cars and seven buses, six of which were sleeper coaches, a factor that rescuers later said made evacuation more difficult was that passengers were trapped inside narrow berths amid smoke and fire.

Less than two months ago, on October 24, another sleeper bus caught fire in Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool district after it was hit by a motorcycle from behind, killing 20. Ten days before, a private AC sleeper bus travelling from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur went up in flames, killing 26 as fire spread rapidly through the coach.

The high casualties in these incidents have brought renewed attention to the safety of sleeper buses operating on India's highways. While these incidents saw large-scale loss of lives, there are many incidents that have failed to grab the headlines, such as the one in Dehradun on December 18 when a group of 40 students from Tamil Nadu escaped without harm after their bus caught fire in Dehradun. In another incident on November 27, a Delhi-Varanasi bus in Kanpur caught fire, even as the passengers only escaped with injuries.

The issue also reached Parliament. In a written reply on December 18, the Union government said at least 64 people had lost their lives in 45 incidents of buses catching fire while in operation over the last three years.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) also took cognisance and wrote to the chief secretaries of states on November 27 to take action against all sleeper buses that violate fire safety norms.

Sleeper buses were not always common on Indian highways. The first organised experiments began in southern India, with state transport undertakings such as the erstwhile Mysore State Road Transport Corporation introducing sleeper bus services as early as 1966.

But, the current proliferation of sleeper buses began much later. Experts trace it to the four-laning of national highways in the early 2000s, which made overnight intercity travel viable.