Roads of Karachi to be cleaned up by checking 3,000 vehicles every month

Departments told to go after unregistered vehicles.

KARACHI: The Supreme Court ordered effective action against unregistered vehicles or those with foreign number plates plying on the city’s roads.

Hearing a suo motu case on Karachi violence on Thursday, the five-member bench also took notice of decrepit public transport vehicles.

Reminding the traffic police officials that it was a mandatory requirement under the laws to check inspect the fitness of public transport every month, the court ordered: “Examine 3,000 public vehicles every month to determine their fitness.”

The apex court summoned the Karachi Traffic DIG, excise and taxation department secretary and senior officer from customs department on Wednesday to explain action taken against the unregistered private vehicles that were largely being used in criminal activities.

Traffic DIG Khurrum Gulzar informed the court that city had large number of vehicles of 2.5 millions, most of them two-wheelers.

He said challan tickets were issued to 13,477 vehicles that had fancy or un-prescribed number plates on them. But the traffic police have no powers to impound these unregistered vehicles, he added.

To a query by the court, DIG Gulzar said traffic police have strength of 3,200 personnel, of them 1,500 perform duty in one shift. He said extra force of 5,000 personnel was direly needed to effectively regulate traffic on roads.

He regretted that several requisitions were submitted to provincial government, asking for provision of more equipment, manpower and funds, but no action was taken in this regard.

The judges came hard on traffic police chief over the issue of traffic gridlocks.

Justice Gulzar Ahmed remarked that traffic police was less motivated to take action against the violators of traffic laws. But, “they immediately run after the trucks or buses to get money,” he added.

Justice Jamali said, “On the one hand the joblessness is increasing, but on the other hand those who want to do work are over-burdened.”

Collector Customs department, who also appeared on court’s order, informed that no imported vehicle was allowed to leave port premises unless it was properly registered in compliance of orders passed by the Sindh High Court couple of years back.

Disagreeing with his claim, the bench pointed out that a large number of imported vehicles arrive at the port and then go to other provinces.

The judges remarked that that the public transport system had been destroyed since the government gave it into the hands of private companies.

“Take immediate action for removal of carriers installed on the rooftops of public buses on which people travel,” remarked Justice Gulzar Ahmed.

Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany observed that many vehicles carrying ‘flags’ were freely roaming around the city. “Are all the vehicles of Governor’s House registered?” he questioned.

An officer from the motor vehicles inspection wing said there were nine Motor Vehicle Inspectors in the province to carry out inspection of vehicles and issue certificates as required under the law.

The bench ordered the Motor Vehicle Examination Wing of the Excise and Taxation department to immediately start inspection of a least 3,000 pubic and private vehicles every month. He was also ordered to submit his reports on monthly basis.

Court also directed several deparments, including traffic police, to immediately take action against unregistered vehicles or those with foreign number plates.

Need to introduce better traffic policing system 

Additional Chief Secretary for Home Department, Waseem Ahmed, said there was a need to introduce the traffic policing system at par with Lahore.

“Karachi traffic police force has the same strength as that of Lahore despite the fact that vehicular population in Karachi is five times bigger than Lahore’s,” he said. He informed the court that a request for two billion rupees to revamp traffic police force was sent to the provincial government, but finance department was not releasing the funds.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2012.