LAHORE, Sept 6: About half of the vans in the city, nearly 2,500, are being driven around without route permits right under the nose of traffic police officials and transport authorities.

The vans are plying not only on the existing routes but even on those cancelled years ago. For instance, over 100 wagons are plying on Route No 7 — Rang Mehal to Baker Mandi, which was cancelled in 1999.

Similarly, wagons also continue to ply on routes where these have been replaced by buses. For example, Route No 21, Sabzazar to Jallo Mor, has been curtailed to Darogawala Chowk, but the drivers continue to run their wagons up to Jallo Mor under the patronage of traffic police.

A driver of the route claimed that the transport authorities had only doubled the rate of bribes after cancelling the route.

Sources in the transport department also confided to this reporter that a majority of wagon drivers did not possess driving licences and posed a serious threat to the life of passengers they carried.

The regional Road Transport Authority (RTA) officials said that some 50 per cent wagon owners came to the RTA for renewal of their route permits whereas only a few showed up for new ones.

Sources said the traffic police were helpless due to the fact that most wagons belonged to police officials. They said the recent campaign for installation of fare metres in cabs and rickshaws also failed due to this reason. The cab and rickshaw drivers’ recent hunger strike at Faisal Square violated Section 144, but they were able to pull it off in connivance with the police, they added.

Under the law, vehicles running in the city must have only 16 seats including the driver’s. Coaches are allowed 26 seats, but no folding seats. However, extra seats are fixed and over-loading freely resorted to.

The officials suggested that the transport authorities should also take into account extra seats and overloading of passengers besides petrol prices while fixing the fares.

When contacted in this regard, Punjab transport secretary Ather Tahir said that the transport authorities could not check all the vehicles. They could only check a few static vehicles and impose a fine in case of any violation. “It is the duty of traffic police to check every van and coach regularly and ensure that drivers have licences and route permits,” he said.

The secretary said that the issue of fare metre in cabs and rickshaws had been solved through the “intervention of Lahore Nazim”. Drivers had been given two options — to display fare rate lists on their vehicles or have fare boards displayed at terminals, intersections and squares.

SSP (Traffic) Col Zaheer Ahmed said that traffic police had started a campaign to fine and impound vehicles without route permits or with drivers without licences. He admitted that a poor check on these violations was causing a loss to the government exchequer.