LAHORE: A meeting, which took place in the provincial capital on Monday to introduce Traffic Wardens Service in Sialkot district to tackle growing traffic volumes in the industrial city, gave a go ahead to the Lahore City Traffic Police chief to chalk out manpower and paraphernalia requirements and submit a summary to the government as early as possible.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, during his previous tenure, had promised to introduce the wardens system in the town.

Currently, the warden service is in place in Lahore, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Multan.

Sources privy to the meeting told Dawn that PML-N MPA Manshullah Butt from Sialkot headed the meeting which was attended by a DIG on behalf of the inspector general of police, Punjab secretary finance, the district coordination officer and the district police officer of Sialkot, Traffic Engineering and Planning Agency chief engineer and CTO Sohail Chaudhry.

A presentation given in the meeting said being an industrial city, there was a need to improve the traffic system and make it more disciplined. A proposal floated by the CTO to pick 80 wardens (who are Sialkot domiciled) from Gujranwala CTP and transfer them to the Sialkot traffic police was approved by the chairman.

Traffic officials working in Sialkot will be imparted training at the Chuhng Police Training College, Lahore.

Sources said the CTO, who was empowered to work on the project, was going to visit Sialkot to assess requirements, road and signal conditions, licensing and other related things.