ACCORDING to a news report, last year 3,798 two-wheelers were snatched or stolen in Karachi alone. The city seems to be a favourite place of vehicle-snatchers. No matter how hard-earned your vehicle is, it can be taken away any time from anywhere.
On an average, around 10 four-wheelers and 15 two-wheelers are either snatched or stolen everyday in the metropolis causing sever mental trauma and financial loss to 25 citizens. Because of this growing evil, insurance and tracking businesses are flourishing by leaps and bounds.
If you are lucky enough to buy a car you have to pay an additional 30 to 50 thousand rupees either to an insurance firm or tracking company in order to make your car a secure property.
Stolen vehicles are also used for/in criminal activities like dacoity and murder.
These days the vehicle-snatching business is quite lucrative as criminals with the collaboration of security officials smuggle the vehicles to Afghanistan via Hub-Balochistan route and get a good amount for it. Stolen vehicles are also sold in the local market where their different parts are sold separately at Sher Shah market, the biggest second-hand motor parts market in Karachi.
According to a report, some people allegedly involved in car and motorcycle hijacking in the city are highly-qualified ones who got involved in the crime partly because vehicle hijacking is a more profitable business than some others.
The report also made a shocking revelation that some accused apprehended for involvement in vehicle-snatching were post-graduates while a sizable number of them were graduates.
It is ironic that criminals involved in car-snatching and thievery are not punished accordingly because of the flaws in the legal system.
According to another report, around 88 per cent car owners and 96 per cent motorcycle owners don’t secure their vehicles with additional lock or anti-theft devices that makes the criminals’ job easy. It is a fact that not everybody can afford to install tracking devices by paying hefty amounts to tracking companies. Therefore, it is the state’s responsibility to ensure maximum security.
Driven by the same sense of responsibility The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), focusing on the state-of-the-art technology for good governance, has come up with a new system to help identify stolen vehicles and minimize the crime. It’s called the Vehicle Identification and Tracking System (VITS). The system would not only help law enforcement agencies to curb vehicle thievery but would also help tax collecting authorities to nab tax evading vehicle owners.
Islamabad’s authorities have already ordered the implementation of the system to track all vehicles coming and going out of the city. The concept of vehicle identification number (VIN) having a national database with access to all law and tax enforcement agencies has been approved by the CBR and other relevant authorities.
A secure certificate VIN with vehicle characteristics will be issued along with the vehicle as it leaves a factory or port. Every owner will be cross-matched with the VIN in the database and a smart or secure chip card will have the vehicle and owner details. Nadra will establish a central vehicle registration system for identification of all vehicles irrespective of the province of operation and all manufacturers and importers will be registered.
To overcome a vehicle’s thievery a passive windshield radio frequency sticker pasted on the inner side of windscreen of the vehicle will be used as a transponder for vehicle identity, from which transceiver, also called reader, installed at designated check post, would encode/decode radio waves from the vehicle’s RFID sticker and identify each vehicle uniquely. The police, at designated check posts, would also be given mobile handheld smart card readers, having the ability to read the owner’s vehicle registration cards.
For registration purposes every vehicle will have its own unique identity, irrespective of its owner or its province of registration. This identity will be stored in the National Data Warehouse and a VIN based on vehicle characteristics will be issued.
The new concept of registration will provide information regarding generalized registration model and ownership will be established using the reference of independently registered entities, and the concept can be utilized for registration or documentation for all our present and future requirements. For example, vehicles can be registered and documented country-wise as the process will start from the manufacturers and importers and go on to the sales outlets and end with the owner. It will also help to document the manufacturers and importers of vehicles.
A unique VIN is equivalent to human DNA which sets each vehicle apart from millions of other vehicles.
This system can be used to track, register, warranty claims and insurance coverage besides thieveries. It would be supported by Nadra’s existing network and data warehouse infrastructure, which is the only country-wide platform available to provide connectivity and information access to all provinces through one common database.
If the federal government decides to initiate the Road User Tax system for road tax collection the new Nadra system would help detect the non-tax paid vehicles. The system will also be able to detect the whereabouts of stolen vehicles and follow the track of vehicle movements.
This system would also minimize human intervention through automated vehicle detection. The most appreciable thing of the system is the minimum recurring expenditures as the whole Vehicle Registration and Chip Instalment would cost less than Rs400 for a lifetime as compared to thousands of rupees being charged by tracking companies.
ACCORDING to a news report, last year 3,798 two-wheelers were snatched or stolen in Karachi alone. The city seems to be a favourite place of vehicle-snatchers. No matter how hard-earned your vehicle is, it can be taken away any time from anywhere.
