KARACHI: Police authorities finally on Wednesday called off the campaign to arrest and jail drivers without driving licences after postponing it twice over the past couple of days amid chaos at driving licence branches.

However, violators of well-defined traffic rules would continue to be fined as per past practice, the authorities announced after a meeting held at the central police office on the directives of Sindh Home Minister Sohail Anwar Siyal.

The meeting, which was chaired by Sindh IGP Ghulam Hyder Jamali, was also informed that more driving licence branches would be established in the city to facilitate the maximum number of applications for driving licence.

Additional IG (traffic) Khadim Hussain Bhatti informed the meeting that documentation process had been initiated to open four new driving licence branches in the first phase. He said the home department had approved the proposal for the new branches.

“In the first phase, driving licence branches will be opened in four new areas at selected places, which include the traffic training institute, crime branch building, police training centre, Saeedabad and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto anti-terrorism training centre, Razzaqabad.”

The additional IG (traffic) further briefed the meeting that some dozen places had also been identified where people could get learning licences made without any inconvenience. The places were offices of the DIG traffic and Zonal SSPs traffic besides the additional IG (traffic) office.

According to a statement issued after the meeting that was also attended by DIG traffic Dr Amir Ahmed Shaikh, DIG driving licence branch Aftab Ahmed Pathan and DIG headquarters Abdul Aleem Jafri, the spokesperson for the police made it clear that the drivers without licences would be issued challan tickets for violating the defined laws.

The campaign twice postponed during the week was finally called off only to devise a strategy to fix the traffic police licensing system before initiating any such campaign.

Just a day ago, traffic police authorities had decided to postpone the driving licence campaign until February next year after the home department came up with a strong reaction to the ‘hasty’ drive. Since its launch, the campaign came under criticism from different quarters of society. On Monday, the day when the drive was launched, a huge number of motorists fearing arrest turned up at driving licence branches, exposing flaws in the licensing system as officials were ill-prepared for a rush on application forms. The situation turned violent at Nazimabad licence branch with the result that the police had to resort to a baton-charge. Subsequently, the authorities intervened and postponed the campaign until December.

Challenges

On Wednesday, the DIG traffic briefed the meeting about challenges of traffic control in the metropolis and recommended their remedies to the authorities. “The DIG informed the meeting that there are around 3.8 million vehicles being plied in Karachi and on an average some 903 new private vehicles hit city roads every day.

“Encroachment and unavailability of parking spaces are main hurdles in swift flow of traffic but the traffic police are trying their best to resolve these issues while taking all stakeholders on board.”

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2015

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