Flawed system: Cost of TVES project still unknown

KARACHI:

Due to several flaws in the system, the probability of the TVES being a media gimmick is high. The cost of the implementation of the system is still unknown.

Traffic police official Muhammad Idrees said that it was just a pilot project for which they have used the traffic police’s own funds. However, according to the traffic police accountant, Riaz, the cost of the traffic cameras was around Rs80,000 so far.

“We have bought four cameras of Rs20,000 each for the system,” he said but refused to tell The Express Tribune the budget the traffic police have allocated for the project.



Apart from cost, the issue of dispatching the fines to the violators’ homes by the traffic police themselves is murky, as the traffic police officials already decry their lack of manpower. To this Idrees responded that their officials do deliver items from one traffic section to another, so delivering the fines would not be a problem. “Every zone has officers who could deliver fines to violators’ homes in their respective zones,” he said. Regarding vehicles registered under the Sindh government and with corporate ownership, he said that if the vehicle belonged to the Sindh chief minister they would dispatch the fines to CM House.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2016.