KARACHI, Dec 30: The Road Transport Authority has failed to implement the amendment made to the Sindh Motor Vehicles Ordinance of 1965, enforced on April 13, 2000, making obligatory on all public transporters to install speed governor in their vehicles plying on specified routes.
Under the amended ordinance, which was enforced after inviting objections/suggestions in respect of insertion of rule 164-A in the West Pakistan Motor Vehicles rules, 1969, no person would drive any stage carriage if the duly sealed speed governor is not fitted in the vehicle.
During the period, according to an estimate, in over 1,000 fatal and non-fatal accidents, hundreds of lives have been lost, besides financial losses amounting to millions of rupees in the forms of vehicles burning and compensation paid to the affectees.
Most of the vehicles are rickety, their seats are torn out, with broken window panes and uneven foot boards. The public transport vehicles are highly smoke-emitting, while taxi and rickshaw meters are tampered. With the passage of time, services have gone down from bad to worse in spite of rise in fares every now and then.
Karachi, Pakistan’s financial capital with a population of over 12 million people, has about 1.2 million registered vehicles for its 7,400 kms road network with the addition of one hundred thousands vehicles every year, which further congests roads making impossible for a motorist to drive his vehicle as per traffic rules.
Most of the road accidents, which occur due to over speeding and rash driving, continue to play havoc with the commuters for want of enforcement of the ordinance.
Despite a passage of 20 months after the ordinance was enforced, neither the RTA nor any of the law-enforcement agencies have paid any heed to check how far the ordinance had been implemented by the transporters.
This is an example of reflection on the government functionaries that how sincere they are in implementing the writ of the government and also a manifestation of the powerful mafia operating in the transport sector, which easily manages to blunt every move of the government to discipline the transport system.
The transport system in Karachi is in a pathetic shape and is the cause of untold hardships for the commuters. The shortage of vehicles results in over-crowding of the public carriages and the poor quality of service adds to the woes of the public.
The RTA gives in to the transporters’ pressure whenever POL prices are raised by allowing them an increase in the fares without compliance to various decisions taken in the past and as usual it never feels the necessity to enforce the ordinance.
This is not the only case where the government functionaries have been found wanting to implement the amended law.
Had the ordinance, which was drafted by the law department of the Sindh government leaving many loopholes by not prescribing punishment for violators of the ordinance, been enforced, certainly many precious lives could have been saved.
According to the amendment, the following new rules would be inserted:
164-A, speed governor: (1) Every stage-carriage plying on the route or routes specified by the provincial transport authority shall be equipped with a speed governor and RPM so that the vehicles do not run beyond the speed as specified by the government and such speed governor and RMP shall be sealed in the manner and instructions issued by the authority accordingly.
(2) A permit holder required to fix a speed governor in his stage-carriage under sub-rule (1) shall produce it before the motor vehicles examiner of the area or any agency or garage authorized by the provincial transport authority for examination and test and shall produce it again before the motor vehicle examiner whenever the vehicle is required to be inspected or for any reason it becomes necessary to break the seal of its speed governor.
(3) No persons shall drive or cause or permit to be driven any stage carriage if the speed governor and RMP duly sealed is not fitted therein, or such person knows or has reason to believe that its RMP is not fixed in accordance with the manner and instructions issued under the sub-rule (1).
(4) If any police officer, not below the rank of an ASI, or any motor vehicles examiner, or any officer of the provincial or regional authority has reason to believe that a stage carriage fitted with speed governor, is defective or has been tampered with, he may stop such stage-carriage and in order to test the speed governor, direct the driver or person incharge of the stage carriage to produce it at the office of a motor vehicle examiner or at any other place specified by him and take steps as he may consider appropriate for the purpose.
