KARACHI, Dec 3: The Vehicle Identification and Tracking System (Vits) project, designed to keep track of and trace stolen vehicles at an affordable price, has been shelved by the Chief Minister’s House, Dawn has learnt.
According to reliable sources, the Sindh government had agreed to the proposal, in principle, under which the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), with assistance from the home department, was to launch the Rs550 million project. After providing technical assistance in the initial phase, Nadra was supposed to have handed over the project to the home department.
After many meetings between the provincial government and Nadra, a summary was moved by the Sindh Home Department in March 2006 to the then Sindh chief minister for approval. However, no decision has been taken on the summary yet.
Under Vits, a chip bearing coded information was to be issued to every vehicle. Monitoring sites with scanners and cameras, manned by personnel of police or Rangers, were to be installed at 110 locations across the city and on the exit points along the routes leading out of the city. As a vehicle would pass through a monitoring site, it would be identified by the scanner as clear (green light), stolen (red light) or untagged (black light). The facility also allowed including other information such as whether the vehicle tax had been paid.
The system will help in tackling vehicle thefts since once a tagged vehicle is reported as stolen, this information will be relayed to the scanners at the monitoring sites. Police will, therefore, know where and when the vehicle has passed through a monitoring site, which will also provide valuable clues to the route taken. Once the vehicle has been reported stolen or snatched, the scanners will detect it and police will know from where and when the vehicle has passed. It will help track the vehicle and the information regarding the route will help identify the monitoring sites it has passed through and the time will help in putting the responsibility on the people manning that point at that time.
The identification of the people during whose duty the vehicle passed through is one of the major reasons owing to which the law-enforcement agencies are said to oppose the idea. Another reason being, as is accepted that every stake-holder, including LEA personnel, get their share from the mafia behind car thefts in the city. So they are not in favour of implementing this system as they fear that their financial stakes might be hurt. This system can also help identify the vehicles used in terrorist activities or bomb blasts by backtracking the history of the vehicle’s movement.
The sources said that one of the plus points of this system, as compared to the other satellite-based tracking systems available here, was its low cost. While the cost of a satellite-based system could be more than Rs7,500 as the initial payment and an annual charge running into thousands of rupees, Nadra’s system, which is ground based and uses telephone lines, would cost around Rs1,200 for four wheelers as the initial payment and Rs200 annually, and for two wheelers Rs300 initially and Rs100 annually.
The satellite-based system may be described as the value-added one as through it the stolen vehicle can be shut down, while the Nadra system can only provide information and the vehicle is to be recovered by LEA personnel.
The sources said the presentation on Vits, which over the years has changed its name to the Vehicle Monitoring and Interception System (VMIS), had been first given to President Pervez Musharraf at a meeting attended by all the chief ministers in Islamabad in 2004 and it was agreed upon by all, after which the exercise between Nadra and the provincial governments started. Almost three years have passed but it has not yet materialized.
The sources said Nadra had even signed an agreement with the Islamabad administration to implement the project in the capital in 2004 but it had not been implemented there either.
The project had been agreed upon at a Sindh Governor’s House meeting in July 2005 and after eight months a summary by the home department was sent to the chief minister for approval, and the matter has been resting there since then.
Responding to Dawn’s queries, Anti-Car-Lifting Unit (ACLU) chief Khurram Waris said that any system that helped check the crime, in this case tracking the stolen vehicles, would be appreciated. However, he said he did not know much about this system, hence could not give his opinion about it until he went through it. He also added that some vehicles, with satellite-based trackers installed, had also gone missing and had not been recovered, as probably the chips installed in the vehicles had been decoded or tempered with. However, any system or device that supplemented the security would be a welcome step towards checking crime.
Nadra’s Karachi chief Brig Ali Qizilbash said the system was ready at Nadra’s end and the proposal had been sent to the Sindh government for a formal approval, though verbally it had been agreed upon by the chief minister earlier, and as soon as the Sindh government gave a go-ahead, it would be put into operation within a few months.
The sources said that while the government here was ambivalent about allowing this system, the system had been appreciated in the Middle East and Africa where Nadra had been short-listed in biddings for similar projects there.
