Police bikes, cars hobbled by fuel shortage

Bikes without fuel for two days, cars don’t get enough to cover beats.

LAHORE:

The police will run out of money for petrol within two days unless it receives a revised budgetary allocation, The Express Tribune has learnt. The supply of fuel to police bikes had already been suspended for two days and the allowance to cars reduced.

The new capital city police officer, Ahmed Raza Tahir, passed verbal orders on Saturday for police bikes to be supplied fuel, police sources said.

In two days, the police are expected to receive permission to spend unutilised funds in the budget on fuel, the allocation for which will dry up in two days.

All police bikes of the Tiger Squad and Muhafiz Squad had been inactive for two days, Thursday and Friday, said Senior Superintendent of Police (Administration) Tariq Abbas.

He said the daily fuel allowance for patrolling cars has been cut from 14 litres to seven litres.

The daily fuel allowance for sub divisional police officer (SDPO) vehicles has been cut from 20 litres to 15 litres and the monthly fuel allowance for superintendent of police (SP) vehicles from 600 litres to 450 litres, SSP Abbas told The Express Tribune.

There are 56 Tiger Squad teams, each consisting of a pair of policemen, covering the city and attending Rescue 15 calls at times when beat patrolling vehicles are not available.

Between five and eight Muhafiz Squad bikes are assigned to each police station. There are 69 cars with the Mobile Squad on patrolling duties, of which six are with divisional beat in-charges and six with deputy superintendents of police.

Sources said that for some patrolling cars, seven litres was not even enough to start covering their beat. After getting their seven litres at the Mughalpura filling station, the cars have to get to a specific police station to sign in and start their beat. This often takes up most of the seven litres.

Cars of Sadar Division and Iqbal Town Division enter and exit their beats through Sabzazar police station; cars of Cantonment Division, Model Town Division and Civil Lines Division enter and exit through Qurban Lines; and cars of City Division enter through Tibbi City police station.

SSP Operation Rana Faisal said that the police would have to cope with the difficulty since there was no alternative.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2011.