GUJRAT: A local member of provincial assembly has sought deployment of some 50 wardens in the city to discipline the traffic as the old traffic police are insufficient to handle an ever increasing number of vehicles plying the roads in district.

PML-N MPA Imran Zafar in a letter written to Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has sought postings of 50 wardens in the city to control traffic.

The traffic police, partly because of staff shortage and partly for incompetence of available officials have miserably failed to handle the large number of vehicles in the district, especially during the peak hours -- school and office timings.

According to sources, a list of as many as 42 traffic wardens belonging to the district and posted in Gujranwala and Sialkot has also been dispatched to provincial authorities for their posting in Gujrat.

The sources said that the decision to post the wardens in Gujrat was still pending at provincial level as the chief minister had sought a report from the concerned authorities in this regard.

Mian Sohail Fazil, Deputy Superintendent of Police (traffic), backing the MPA’s demand said posting of wardens would improve the situation on roads as currently traffic police had been facing shortage of staff, especially officials in inspector rank.

The DSP said there were only 10 sanctions posts of traffic inspectors in the district, whereas only 123 constables were posted against more than 150 approved posts.

Similarly, he said, only 10 head constables (HCs) were posted against 30 slots while 17 assistant sub inspectors (ASIs) were posted against 22 such posts. However, 12 sub-inspectors are available against as many slots.

But, out of the available officials, at least 20 are posted against office (desk) job, whereas around a dozen are usually on leave, causing staff shortage.

He said some of the available traffic police officials were also posted in small towns like Jalalpur Jattan, Lalamusa, Kharian, Sara-i-Alamgir, etc, adding that with posting of wardens in the city area most of traffic issues could be resolved.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2015

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