FAISALABAD: After testing the nerves of motorists and traffic wardens for more than a year, the municipal corporation has started repairing the broken and faulty traffic signals of the city.

The traffic police officials contacted the city mayor a number of times for repair of the signals which have become source of squabble among the motorists, choking the traffic which leads to delay in reaching the destination and accidents of various nature.

Signals at almost all main points are faulty or partially working.

In March last year, the district administration and the municipal corporation officials had developed differences over the issue of signals electricity bills. Due to non-payment of the dues, the Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (Fesco) had also severed the electricity connection. However, the issue was resolved after a couple of weeks.

Sources said City Traffic Officer Hasnain Haider, like his predecessors, took up the issue of traffic signals with the mayor who promised to get the signals repaired by the end of February. However, during a visit to different areas of the city, it has surfaced that it will take almost one to two months more to resolve the issue.

In November last, the district administration had issued Rs13m for signals repair and it was claimed that work would be completed by the end of December but it did not happen.

A traffic warden, Ali, says five state and two provincial ministers belong to Faisalabad and frequently travel on the roads having faulty signals. He said it’s irony that the issue remained unresolved and nobody tried to take it up personally to control the increasing number of accidents.

“One could independently launch a survey and interview the shopkeepers doing business near the main roundabouts that how many scuffles or exchange of words between the motorists they have been observing for months,” he adds.

Prior to installation of the local government system, the district administration was responsible for signals maintenance but responsibility was shifted to the municipal corporation after the local bodies took over. However, both departments did not bother to repair the faulty signals.

Ali says that due to increasing number of vehicles on city roads it has become impossible for the wardens to regulate the traffic manually.

Akbar Ansari, a motorist waiting outside the Laboratory School on the Jail Road to pick his children, says he has observed an ambulance desperately honking to find the way to shift some patient to the Allied Hospital. However, the faulty signal had made it difficult for the traffic warden to make way for the ambulance.

He says the warden had to turn up in the middle of the road, signal the motorists on three sides to stop and then he ensured the movement of the stuck ambulance. Seeing the road clear, Ansari adds, some of the motorists also sped up their vehicles on rear side of the ambulance.

“I daily visit the Jail Road to pick my children and quarrels between the motorists have become order of the day,” he laments.

A union council chairman, requesting anonymity, says the corporation has been focusing on the development projects of construction in various union councils which is an easy source of earning. He says unpaved streets would not lead to any accident but the faulty signals surely land the motorists in trouble.

“The Punjab government must launch a probe into the issue that why repair work was not done even for more than a year,” he suggests.

CTO Hasnain Haider told Dawn that work on signals has been started and about five signals have been operationalised.

He says the repair work would be completed in about next 25 days.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2018