September 24, 2008	Wednesday	Ramazan 23, 1429

KARACHI, Sept 23: Encroachments on roads at different market places, shopping malls and business centres in the city, including M.A. Jinnah Road, Saddar, Tariq Road and old city areas, are causing problems to people while creating a severe traffic mess in Ramazan.

Besides the encroachments, the slow-moving development works in many parts of the city have also resulted in traffic jams. One such place is Nagan Chowrangi where almost all roads leading to the Chowrangi have been dug up.

Another such area is Gulshan Chowrangi, where the construction of an overhead bridge and dug-up roads has resulted in severe traffic congestion. Vehicular traffic remains sluggish between Gulshan Chowrangi and Nipa Chowrangi due to the absence of community and traffic police personnel there in the evening rush hour.

The people’s miseries are doubled due to lack of proper deployment of traffic police in the busy market areas of the city.

It is learnt that the number of community police has also been reduced in the city and in most of the areas. This has lead to traffic jams at many places.

It is said that even after the deployment of community police personnel around the shopping centres there is no respite from traffic mess.

The worst traffic jams are being observed at Saddar, Zainab Market, Tariq Road and Boulton Market areas which are impassable during the rush hours.

Many other shopping hubs are also facing the same problem due to the poor traffic control system.

“Half of the community police force is withdrawn during the day from the roads and are deployed at sixteen shopping centres in the city,” says the official in charge of community policing, Azhar Hashmi.“Most of the traffic jams take place around the shopping centres and that is why we have decided to deploy more force at these shopping hubs to provide relief to people shopping in the evening, which is the peak shopping time,” he says.

“Around 400 community policemen are deployed at all shopping centres of the city from 9:30pm to 3am to control the traffic,” he says.

Forum, Zamzama, Gulf, Tariq Road, Bahadarabad, Zainab Market, Haideri, Khilafat Chowk, Saddar, KDA, Millennium and Samama are the main shopping centres where community police have been deployed, especially at night, he says.

“We are also focusing on the old city area because it is very congested, and massive traffic jams have frequently been witnessed there,” he says while adding that they have deployed around 400 to 450 community police personnel in the old city area to manage the traffic.

He says they have also raised a separate force to pick up beggars who roam around the shopping malls and other main streets of the city pestering the general public.

“We pick the beggars up and shift them to the Edhi village,” he adds.

Around 70 to 80 community police personnel are working on the task to keep shopping malls beggar-free, he says.

“We are trying our best to control the traffic,” he says, adding that little traffic jams on the occasion of Eid are normal.

“Our community police are taking immediate action against encroachers wherever we found them disturbing the traffic,” he claims.

“There are 1,600 to 1,800 community cops working to manage the traffic on the streets of Karachi,” the DIG of traffic, Wajid Durrani, says.

“The community police are mainly required during the rush hour from 2pm till the evening,” he says.

“We need community police support as we are short of 1,800 to 2,000 traffic police personnel,” he admits.

“There are 400 vacancies to be filled by the government but no recruitment has been made during the past five years,” he says.

“If we get those 400 people recruited we can manage the traffic,” he hopes.

“Operation is ongoing against the encroachers and wherever they are found causing trouble to the traffic flow we remove them,” he says.

“However, there is an element of sympathy, because these encroachers are poor people and that’s why we give them some concession during Ramazan, but if they are blocking traffic flow, we immediately remove them,” he says.

“We have done very well so far and one should not confuse a traffic jam with traffic congestion,” he says. “The traffic congestion does not mean a traffic jam,” he says somewhat quizzically.—PPI