Egalitarian technolgy: Big Brother is watching

Electronic surveillance system introduced to curb traffic violations.


Akbar Bajwa January 19, 2015
A police van stands guard outside the Queen Mary college in Lahore on Monday. PHOTO: ONLINE

LAHORE:


The Chief Minister’s Special Monitoring Unit (SMU) on Monday launched a pilot project in collaboration with Traffic Police.


The project using an electronic surveillance based policing system aims at checking violation of traffic rules and monitoring wardens’ performance.



Selected traffic wardens on several city roads were provided high-power cameras to take pictures of registration numbers of vehicles violating traffic rules. Using the data, Traffic Police retrieved details about the vehicle owners from the Excise and Taxation Department.

SMU officials said nearly 100 motorists were sent notices, warning them against the violation, at their residences along with the pictures.

Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) Tayyab Hafeez Cheema said the notices were mailed to the motorists. The offenders included drivers of cars, motorcycles and public transport, he said.

Cheema said the offenders had not been fined. “We want to give them the message that they are being watched.”

“The purpose of the project is to ensure that law is applied equally to all citizens… this is only possible through the use of technology,” Senior SMU Member Salman Sufi told The Express Tribune.

Sufi said several hotspots would be set up in the city allowing motorists to pay fines on the spot. “A warden will deposit the fine tickets and the cast at his sector headquarters the same day.

The motorists will have an option of paying the fines online.”

Sufi said the SMU had recommended that the Law Department make necessary amendments to the law relating to issuance of tickets. He said currently a ticket had five copies; three of these are given to the offender. Under the new system, he said, only one would be issued to the offender. The remaining copies would be generated through computers, he said.

He said that the system would help detect tampering of fine books. “It will also help monitor the wardens’ performance and discourage misuse of ticket books,” he said.



CTO Cheema said that currently more than 2,000 wardens, working in two shifts, issued tickets to motorists who deposited fines at the National Bank of Pakistan before collecting the documents from the traffic sector concerned.

“Under the new system, wardens will not collect documents from the motorists,” the CTO said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20th, 2015.

COMMENTS (4)

Huda Wajih | 9 years ago | Reply @Noreen Ahsanuddin: The cameras will not be overwhelmed. That isn't how technology works these days. Data will be shifted regularly. And I don't know how you haven't observed the vast difference in the performance of traffic wardens in the past couple of months. There are wardens at every stop and I have personally been caught and observed others being caught for jumping a traffic light. Also, you must have noticed signage on roads indicated violations and their fines. That is to educate the citizens about the violations. The next step is catching them. Before enforcement comes education. Lets appreciate what efforts are being made and lets get out of the typical mentality of always criticizing the government.
Abra | 9 years ago | Reply

violations is committed, but we couldn't find them easy. nowadays web helps us to be more flexible and check traffic violations online. I love this gov future: http://www.photonoticecom.org/

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