KARACHI: The Sindh transport department and the traffic police on Wednesday formally launched a campaign to ensure that no school van was fitted with a gas cylinder as they imposed fines on 273 vehicles, officials in the provincial government said.

They said the campaign had primarily been launched in the cities of Sindh, with more intensity in Karachi, where traffic police intercepted school vans and fined the drivers of those being run on LPG or CNG.

“It is illegal for these vehicles to be fitted with gas cylinders; thus, our campaign is to safeguard schoolchildren from any tragic incident as such incidents have been reported in the past months,” said Awais Qadir Shah, Sindh minister for transport and mass transit, in a statement issued to the media.

Officials said so far drivers of some 273 vans had been fined while 241 CNG cylinders had been removed from the vehicles and confiscated.

“At any cost,” said the transport minister, “we’ll not allow the owners of the school vans using CNG cylinders in their vans.”

The minister said the provincial government was committed to ensuring safety of schoolchildren on roads for which the province-wide campaign for the removal of CNG cylinders from school vans had been launched.

“Our government is committed to ensuring that children are safe and secure in school vans,” said Mr Shah, adding that the campaign was covering the entire province for which “no pressure” from any quarters was being entertained.

“This campaign has the single objective to make the journey of our schoolgoing children safe. No pressure from anyone is being entertained,” said the minister.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2019