Overview
- Two separate bus blazes on Tuesday left no casualties after all passengers were evacuated; one burned out near Ujjain on the Indore road and the other was destroyed on the Noida–Greater Noida Expressway.
- Officials have given conflicting accounts of the Ujjain fire with some witnesses reporting a tyre burst while the Madhya Pradesh transport secretary and preliminary probes point to a short circuit as a likely cause.
- The Ujjain vehicle was run by a private operator under the newly launched Mukhyamantri Sugam Parivahan Seva and the RTO has been ordered to verify records, issue a show-cause notice and consider permit cancellation.
- In the Noida case police and fire officials say smoke from the engine prompted the driver to stop and evacuate about 32 passengers; the driver and conductor were detained for further investigation.
- These incidents follow a deadly Sept. 23 Yamuna Expressway fire that killed nine and triggered stepped-up checks like Operation Kavach 2.0, and they have increased pressure for technical inspections, enforcement of AIS-119 standards and clearer oversight of state-linked private fleets.