A summary of provision of 1,000 vehicles and 400 motorcycles with a cost of over Rs8 billion has been prepared by Punjab Police for the approval of Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.
A few days back, the chief minister during a ceremony to honour the sacrifices of cops at Police Martyrs Day (August 4) at Qila Gujjar Singh Police Lines had issued instructions to IG Punjab Faisal Shahkar to share with the details of the demand to fully equip with new vehicles to these wings.
Though formally these wings had not been abolished but these remained neglected during the tenure of successive governments especially the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) in Punjab.
The PHP was devised as a specialised wing meant for the purpose of patrolling the highways that fell under the command of the Punjab government. When the wing was launched, road robberies on the arteries of the highways (roads connecting cities with national highways) was a serious issue.
Elahi government had pumped huge funds to launch the project. State-of-the-art buildings (marked as PHP posts were set up across Punjab along with provision of new vehicles.
The PHP staff was also awarded with extra pricks and privileges as compared to district police other wings.
However, as the government was changed, a large number of vehicles either broke down or were declared condoned as these had travelled 1.5 to two million extra miles more than the expiry limits.
The recent summary by Punjab Police also noted that over 88% of the vehicles in use of the wings were completely or partially out of order.
It cost them millions of rupees under the heads of repair and maintenance.
Many visuals over the years where PHP officials could be seen pushing on foot their patrolling vehicles also made rounds on media.
The staff had also been neglected regarding increment, promotions and service structure.
However, despite huge hue and cry, no effort had been made by the political government to reform the wing allegedly due to “political victimisation”.
Same had been the case with traffic wardens. They also had to wait for so many years even for their first promotion.
The summary revealed that the Punjab Police
had demanded exclusively at least 700 new
vehicles for PHP and Traffic Police.
Other than that 220 vehicles have been demanded for the officers of the rank of DSPs deputed in the field or CPO of the wing and 50 vehicles for the senior officers.
The summary also contained a demand of 400 bikes for traffic police.
Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi on Ausgust 4 had told IGP Faisal Shahkar that the transport will be prepared on emergency grounds (within days).
“I’ll personally look that there comes no bureaucratic bottleneck in the way,” he had said.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 11th, 2022.
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