Booming population: Understaffed ITP needs a muscle boost, says SSP

Flow of traffic has increased seven times in the past 13 years

ISLAMABAD: The traffic police in the federal capital need more staff to handle the increase in traffic amid booming population, a senior official said.

Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) Furukh Rashid has underlined the need to enhance the strength of the Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP), pointing out that the dearth of traffic officials was, in fact, undermining the efficiency of the force and contributing to worsening traffic problems with each passing day.

"The traffic flow has increased almost seven times in the past 13 years and the staff's strength has gradually decreased from 685 to 628 owing to the retirement of some officials," he said, while pointing out that over the past 20 years, the population of the federal capital has more than doubled to over 2 million residents.

When the ITP was created in 2005, SSP Rashid said that it had a mandated force of around 685 officials who were tasked with managing 125,000 registered vehicles in the city besides those coming from different cities, especially neighbouring Rawalpindi. This came to around 183 vehicles per traffic official.

Now, SSP Rashid says, city residents own around 900,000 vehicles — a seven-time increase — apart from bearing the rising burden of traffic coming from other parts of the country.

The situation, he said, requires urgent reinforcement of the ITP.

In this regard, SSP Rashid said that they need over 2,000 traffic wardens to be deployed at 506 points across the federal capital just to handle the daily load of traffic.

Given the current strength of the force, he said that the ITP is stretched over 286 spots around the clock in two 12-hour-long shifts while 89 points are regulated partially.

"Some 131 spots, mostly in the rural areas of the city, go unattended due to a shortage of staff," he conceded.

But rural areas, not the only areas where the police are unable to spare any men to control traffic, some key thoroughfares and intersections are also intermittently manned owing to lack of manpower.

These include both sides of the Islamabad Expressway, Tarnol, Bara Kahu, Golra and some sectors of the capital including sectors G-11, E-7, E-8, and E-11.

At least six sergeants, the SSP said, were required to be deployed at large junctions while four at small junctions.

"Currently, the ratio is four and one respectively," he lamented.

Another ITP official regretted that the department was not getting required budget and strength despite the fact that they generate Rs3 million annually for the national exchequer, including  Rs2 million from traffic tickets and fines and a further million rupees in the form of licence fees.

Highlighting the ITP's controlled management with limited resources, the official said "the department does not have even a single crane to remove a damaged vehicle from the road in case it requires emergency clearance.

"We are forced to use out-dated fork lifters for the purpose," he regretted.

SSP Rashid said they have just 36 patrol cars, 70 motorbikes and six obsolete lifters to cover an area spread over 906 square kilometres.

"There was no dedicated piece of land for ITP and currently we are running our affairs in a temporary office, designated as the green belt and can be removed at any time," he feared.

In response to a question, the official said that managing VVIP movements and regulating parking issues in the capital’s markets were also a reason for the absence of ITP's officials at some major stops.

He also termed the amount of fine on traffic violations as inadequate, saying it was not helping improve the behaviour of violators since it was too low to have a prohibitive impact on violators.

SSP Rashid said that recently they had sent a proposal to review and revise the fine for traffic violations to the quarters concerned, requesting to increase the maximum penalty to Rs5,000 to reign in motorists who commit absolute violations deliberately.

Noting that road accidents take more lives than any natural disasters, he urged the authorities concerned to bring reforms in traffic laws and ensure the provision of required staff to handle the capital’s affairs.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2018.