Dangerous drive: Traffic police ill-prepared to enforce ban on Qingqis

The police have no impound yards to house the vehicles that they must take off the roads

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) may have banned the operation of all three-wheeler Qingqi rickshaws in the province, but the authorities who are supposed to implement these orders have no idea how to deal with the situation. 

The Karachi traffic police haplessly point towards the only two impound lots in the city. The capacity of the two lots put together is no match for the thousands of Qingqis that used to run on the city's main thoroughfares until a day earlier. The Sindh transport department is typically asleep over the issue.

Read: Unfit for the road: SHC bans three-wheeler Qingqis

Muhammad Idrees, the reader to traffic DIG Amir Ahmed Shaikh told The Express Tribune that after the court's decision, as many as 289 three-wheeler Qingqis have been impounded. "In every area of Karachi, we will clamp down against these Qingqis," he assured, admitting that they could not possibly impound all the Qingqis. "The process will take a little time, since we lack manpower and don't have space to impound above 40,000 Qingqis that used to run on the roads of Karachi," he explained.

He added that the traffic DIG had requested Karachi Commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui and the transport department to allow the traffic police to use the Sindh Road Transport Corporation's (SRTC) ground behind the Indus Hospital in Korangi where they would impound these vehicles.

"Currently, we have no impound yards approved by the government. The impounded vehicles of West and central zones are housed in Saeedabad training institute, whereas, the impounded vehicles of South are put in an impound yard of Qayumabad, which has a capacity of no more than 100 vehicles" he said.

Read: Conquering the roads: The wheels on these Qingqis make Karachi go round

The head-muharir of Gulshan-e-Iqbal traffic police station, Khuda Baksh, told The Express Tribune that they had confiscated as many as 35 Qingqis in the last 24 hours. "We don't have any more space to impound these Qingqis," he said, adding that they were not returning the impounded vehicles and were waiting for orders from the DIG.



"The responsibility of these vehicles also lies with us. If anything happens to these vehicles, their owners won't spare us," he complained, urging the transport department to provide the traffic police with proper impound yards.

No official of the transport department was, however, ready to speak on the negligence. Yar Muhammad Mirjat, the component manager at the Pakistan Sustainable Transport Project, said that the transport department would hold a meeting to discuss the 'serious' issue next week. He was of the opinion that since the ban was ordered for all of Sindh, Qingqis won't be allowed to ply in any part of the province.

On the ground, however, his words presented a stark contrast as no action throughout Upper Sindh was observed against the dangerous three-wheelers even a day after the court orders. Thousands of motorcycle rickshaws were seen plying in different cities and towns of Upper Sindh including, Ghotki, Shikarpur, Khairpur, Jacobabad, Kashmore-Kandhkot, Larkana, Naushahro Feroze, Kamber-Shahdadkot and Dadu.

As the cheapest means of transport, the motorcycle rickshaws are very popular among the people, particularly in the smaller districts.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th, 2015.