In the early hours of 16 December, at least 13 people died as a result of a fire that resulted in a series of accidents resulting in a pile-up of multiple vehicles on the Yamuna Expressway in Mathura due to low visibility due to fog. While the accident involved three cars and seven buses, six of which were sleeper coaches, rescuers later said that evacuation was made more difficult because passengers were trapped inside the narrow berth amid smoke and fire.
Less than two months earlier, on October 24, another sleeper bus caught fire after being hit from behind by a motorcycle in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool district, killing 20 people. Ten days ago, a private AC sleeper bus traveling from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur caught fire, killing 26 people as the fire quickly spread throughout the coach.
The large number of casualties in these incidents have drawn renewed attention to the safety of sleeper buses operating on India’s highways. Although these incidents resulted in loss of lives on a large scale, there are several incidents that failed to make headlines, such as the Dehradun incident on December 18, when a group of 40 students from Tamil Nadu escaped unharmed after their bus caught fire in Dehradun. In another incident on November 27, a Delhi-Varanasi bus caught fire in Kanpur, although passengers had a narrow escape.
The matter even reached Parliament. In a written reply on December 18, the central government said at least 64 people have lost their lives in 45 incidents of fire in buses during operation in the last three years.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) also took cognizance and on November 27 wrote to the Chief Secretaries of states to take action against all sleeper buses violating fire safety norms.
How did sleeper buses come into existence?
Sleeper buses were not always common on Indian highways. The first organized experiment began in southern India, where state transport undertakings such as the erstwhile Mysore State Road Transport Corporation started sleeper bus services as early as 1966.
But, the current proliferation of sleeper buses began much later. Experts attribute this to the four-laning of national highways in the early 2000s, which made overnight intercity travel viable. The segment matured in the 2010s due to improved roads, increasing interstate migration, tourism and persistent supply gaps in long-distance train availability.
Sleeper buses filled a void – particularly for passengers who were unable to secure confirmed train tickets on popular night routes. But, this growth occurred in a largely unorganized and lightly regulated ecosystem.
“There is no exact number of sleeper buses operating in India,” said Mohammed Afzal, vice-president of the Bus and Car Operators Confederation of India (BOCI). There are about 20 lakh buses in India, about 90% of them are privately operated, sleeper services lack organized fleets and informal operators.
Popular bus aggregator platform redBus recently said that intercity buses run by 6,000 active private operators carried more than 140 million people between April and September 2025. He said sleeper and hybrid buses accounted for 85% of all journeys, with AC services accounting for 71%.
What is the cause of these fires?
Experts said that although passengers faced similar fates in the various accidents mentioned above, there is an important but often overlooked difference between fires caused by accidents versus fires that start without any impact.
Of course, the Kurnool incident was also mentioned in the central government’s response, but it was not counted in the numbers. Even the Yamuna Expressway pileup will not be counted.
“In collision-related cases, fuel lines break, temperatures rise and fire becomes almost inevitable when oxygen is available,” said Anil Chhikara, former deputy transport commissioner of Delhi and currently faculty at the Asian Institute of Transport Development. “But, a large number of fires in sleeper buses are non-impact fires. They occur due to electrical overload and are completely preventable.”
Chhikara said, “There are often many cases where buses catch fire due to wiring fault or overheating, after which the passengers manage to escape and the incident is never seriously investigated.”
Retrofitting and fire risk
Experts like Chhikaara point out that these non-impact fires are mostly seen in non-premium AC sleeper buses. And many of the sleeper buses involved in the fire are not factory-built sleepers, but standard coaches built locally after their registration.
The difference between premium and non-premium is based on the investment made by the bus operators. While a factory built AC sleeper bus will cost approximately Custom built sleeper coach will cost less than Rs 2 crore 1 crore but without the mandatory safety features. Currently, only 10% of all buses run by state-run corporations and premium fleet operators run buses that are designed as per the latest safety features.
“These retrofitted AC sleeper buses are uniquely unsafe,” Chikkara said. Continuous air conditioning, lighting and charging points often last for 14 to 15 hours, even during roadside stops. “Many have been retrofitted locally to add AC systems, which provide extremely high amperage,” he said.
Unlike original equipment manufacturers, which use multiplex wiring to safely distribute electrical loads, local bus body builders often rely on cheap components obtained from unofficial markets. “When the wires overheat, the insulation burns, sparking starts and once the fire enters the wiring network, it spreads throughout the bus within minutes,” he said.
Chikkara said hammers to break glass panels during an emergency and fire alarm and suppressor systems are also not usually provided in customized buses by local body builders.
Apart from the wiring, what turns such fires into large-scale fatalities is the sleeper coach layout itself. Narrow aisles, stacked berths and limited headroom severely restrict movement during emergencies. Technically, sleeper buses are required to have multiple emergency exits, but in practice many custom-built buses have the rear exits often blocked after registration to add extra berths.
Aditya Rane, senior associate at ITDP India, which provides knowledge support to bus operators, said, “In case of fire, passengers have to crawl into multiple compartments to reach the escape point. If there is no space to stand or move, it becomes impossible to escape.”
Weak oversight, regulatory lapses
In India, automotive industry standards such as AIS-052 (bus body code), AIS-119 (sleeper bus code) and AIS-134 (fire detection and suppression systems) stipulate requirements for construction and fire safety.
But SN Dhole, head of the technical secretariat at the Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT), said enforcement has failed to keep pace. “Standards exist, but compliance is largely document-based,” he said.
“Local body manufacturers often use parts that cannot withstand sustained heat and electrical loads, while flammable materials such as foam, which should be avoided, are used, adding to the risk profile,” he said.
A major regulatory change between 2022 and 2024 will allow accredited bodybuilders to self-certify. As routine physical inspections by regional transport offices (RTOs) were reduced, officials began increasingly relying on uploaded certificates. But, Dhole said, even if the rule is overturned, the loopholes go undetected or are ignored.
RTOs are expected to issue fitness certificates every two years and flag malpractices in vehicle design. “There is an acute shortage of trained engineers who can actually assess electrical systems and fire safety. In many states, inspection duties have been assigned to clerical staff as technical posts remain vacant,” Chhikara said.
Gurmit Singh, another BOCI official, highlighted another common feature in the existing scheme. “Often the vehicles are registered in Arunachal Pradesh or Nagaland, and are not subjected to actual physical fitness testing and are driven thousands of kilometers away with minimal inspection.”
He said, in view of these recent incidents, the Union Road Transport Ministry during a meeting of stakeholders had considered imposing a complete ban on customized sleeper buses in favor of only OEM-built coaches.
Incidentally, China had banned the sale of all types of sleeper buses in 2012 after some fatal accidents.
The victims of recent bus fires were passengers who had limited options.
“These are generally people who cannot afford premium buses and are unable to get confirmed train tickets, especially on long-distance routes. They travel overnight with the confidence that the bus is safe,” said Madhu Sudan Sharma, senior program officer at Consumer Unity and Trust Society and member of the Road Safety Network from Rajasthan. According to the central government data presented in Parliament, the state has reported the highest number of deaths.
Sharma said it is in the wake of these recent tragedies that the Rajasthan Transport Department has started keeping a close watch on private operators and body builders, focusing on fitness, fire safety systems and unauthorized modifications. He said continued enforcement would be important to prevent repeat incidents.
