QINGYANG, Gansu - Forty new school buses were put into use Friday in the city of Qingyang in the wake of a deadly school bus crash that claimed 21 lives last November in Northwest China's Gansu province.

The Qingyang city government spent a total of 10 million yuan ($1.58 million) to buy the new buses, which will be allocated to local kindergartens, said Xin Gangguo, vice mayor of the city.

A service center responsible for school bus management has also been established by the city's education department.

Qualifications for school bus drivers have also been strictly specified according to a new regulation on road safety issued and put into effect last Sunday by the provincial People's Congress.

It states that  school bus drivers should be under the age of 55 and have at least four years of driving experience.

Twenty-one people, including 19 preschoolers and two adults, died and 43 others were injured on November 16, 2011, when a nine-seat school bus illegally carrying 64 people collided head-on with a coal truck in Yulinzi township, Zhengning county in the city of Qingyang.