E-tag will be effective for 365 days from the date of issue but I am afraid many more days will pass before I get one.
LAHORE: Entering Lahore Cantonment is quite a hassle these days. There are long queues of vehicles, except for the lane for those which have an ‘e-tag’. I applied for an e-tag for my car in the first week of June and it was supposed to be delivered in four weeks’ time, and I was to be notified via an SMS. However, nearly eight weeks have since passed and I am still waiting.
I called the number that was given to applicants and was told that there were nearly 35,000 applications and so processing was taking longer than expected. I was advised to come in person to the Station Headquarters and check if my name was cleared by the security agencies. This itself belies the advertisements that say ‘Save your precious time, get an e-tag for your vehicle’. The e-tag will be effective for 365 days from the date of issue but I am afraid many more days will pass before I get one. The cost of the form is Rs20 while the e-tag charge is Rs1,500 for one year. Multiply this by 35,000 applications and the total revenue generated by this is more than Rs53 million!
Dr Shahid Qayyum
Published in The Express Tribune, August 1st, 2014.
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