LAHORE: The Dolphin Squad project of the city police has suffered a blow as 155 of the 600 heavy motorbikes have gone off the road due to a lack of maintenance.

The 155 heavy bikes have been unused for long and one of the major reasons behind this sorry state of affairs is said to be shortage of funds to meet the high maintenance cost of the two-wheelers.

Similarly, unavailability of the specially-designed tyres of the bikes in the local market is also an issue.

155 of bikes remain unfit for use

The new force was raised on the model of the Turkish police which had helped the Punjab government in its successful launch some three years ago. As many as 2,247 highly-trained, qualified and dedicated personnel have been put at the strength of this dedicated force.

It is covering 8,700 vulnerable points in the provincial capital to fight street crime as first responder. Most points fall in the jurisdiction of the Model Town and Civil Lines Divisions besides some other important localities.

It’s being supervised by a superintendent of police in the provincial capital, an official told Dawn. He said the government had provided to the Lahore police 600 heavy bikes (500cc) for controlling crime. A flashy new multi-storey headquarters was also constructed for the force meant for crime prevention in the second largest city of the country.

The young recruits were trained by experts from Turkey. The police official on the driving seat has been equipped with pistol while the pillion carries an MP 5 gun and a baton.

The official said the squad suffered problems regarding maintenance of the heavy bikes due to high cost in the starting phase when some of them went off the road. “Each tyre of the heavy bike costs Rs44,000 and the mechanical work also piled up when officials found the local mechanics unable to repair these due to its specialised features and technicalities,” he said.

The Dolphin Squad authorities, he said, made attempts to engage the company which supplied the bikes to solve the issues but to no avail.

Acting SSP Operations Nadeem Khokhar told Dawn that the Dolphin Squad was facing shortage of funds. He said unavailability of tyres was the main issue and monopoly of the local companies had delayed the provision of the high-cost tyres.

“After discussing various options in the recent meetings we are now going to start bidding process to procure the tyres,” he said. He said overall the Dolphin Squad had yielded positive results and efforts were being made for the sustainability of the scheme that has already been replicated in many other major cities of the province.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2018