On Friday, the ITP closed the issuance of computerised traffic license service.
“We could no longer sustain the financial pressure of purchasing the imported paper used in the license,” said an official of ITP. “Despite our repeated requests and directions from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the finance ministry has not allocated the budget,” he added.
Previously, ITP was generating its own funds for the purpose, through the license free. They had upgraded the quality of the computerised licenses in line with the international standards. “It was cheap also. Unlike Rawalpindi and other cities, our license free was Rs450, which was very reasonable, to obtain a world class license,” he said.
The official added, “Because of the infrastructure we created, the whole process of obtaining a license was free of hassles and corruption.”
By the end of 2010, PAC, under the chairpersonship of Chaudhry Nisar, had asked the ITP to regularise the funds it was earning from the license fee and submit them to the government. This was done at a time when no amount had been allocated for the computerised licensing in ITP’s budget.
For this purpose, secretary finance was directed to “allocate a proper budget for future expenditures”, which was not done.
As a result, the much touted license set up had to suffer. But this was not the only casualty.
Due to lack of financial management, the police known for its “equal treatment for all” attitude have also lost heart. The men in grey, who were previously found vigilantly controlling the traffic throughout the capital, can only be spotted near Jinnah Super Market along with a few other places.
“You will rarely see an ITP official helping the traffic on the highways. Why should we do that if we have been deprived of all incentives,” said another official, who was standing next to a busy intersection in the capital, oblivious to the traffic passing by.
None of the officials were paid from the 25 per cent of the total money collected through ticketing and challans. For three years, the collected sum amounting to over Rs100 million was only released after the court orders were issued in favour of the ITP officials. So far, the funds have not been distributed among them, sources said.
They claimed that police high ups were planning to purchase new vehicles for ITP from the money released and planned to distribute the remaining amount. However, an official said, “They are not ready to give up on a single penny, let alone distribute the amount.”
“It was our right and the government should allocate budget for purchasing new vehicles. Why should we give up our rightful claim over the hard-earned money,” said a traffic police constable.
He said the downfall of the ITP began the day it was put under the command of Deputy Inspector General (Operations) Bani Amin. Previously, the ITP was directly under the command of Inspector General of Police.
“Then the traffic police officials were fearless in issuing tickets to anyone, including VIPs as we knew our high ups were behind us and would sustain political pressure. Now things are different,” said a senior police officer.
Sources told The Express Tribune that the DIG (Operations) once said in a meeting with traffic police that “relationships were more important
than challans”.
DIG Bani Amin denied, when contacted, that he had any role in the downfall of the traffic police. “The IG had already taken command from me some three to four months ago,” said Amin.
The officials feared the closure of issuing of license was the first nail in the coffin of the neglected ITP whose performance had taken a sharp dip in last six months.
“All our cars and motorbikes have completed their age. Cars have run over 300, 000 kilometers and need replacement but there are no funds for it,”an official added.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 30th, 2011.
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