FAISALABAD: Faulty traffic signals in many parts of the city have become a nuisance for motorists and nobody bothers to resolve this perennial issue.

Repeated requests by the traffic officials to the higher-ups in the district administration have not yielded any results.

A couple of weeks ago, the former chief traffic officer, Sardar Asif, approached the commissioner with a request to form a permanent team which should inspect all chowks daily and repair the dysfunctional signals. He informed the commissioner that being the third largest city, the traffic load is increasing on city roads with every passing day. He said signals were important for traffic regulation but scores of them are out of order.

Some of the signals were repaired temporarily, however, they had gone out of order after a while. He pointed out that eight signals at different chowks including Total Pump, Purana GTS, Chiniot Bazaar, Kotwali Chowk, Kutchery Bazaar Chowk, Nishat Cinema Chowk, Imambargah Chowk and Chenab Chowk Jhang Road had been out of order for a long time and wardens were regulating traffic manually.

Neither any team had been set up for repair of the faulty signals nor had mechanism evolved to repair the signals, he added.

Problem has not been addressed for last many years

Nothing has been done in response to the letter whose copy had also been forwarded to the chief of the metropolitan corporation.

This correspondent contacted Commissioner Ishrat Ali with queries that a number of traffic signals are dysfunctional creating plethora of problems for the motorists and the wardens as well. But such signals are not being repaired by the corporation. He did not respond even two days after reading message on his WhatsApp.

People say during morning and closure of schools, traffic remain stuck on the roads and wardens fail to regulate it. They say motorists faced problems even when the schools and colleges were closed due to Covid-19 and now the situation would worsen due to traffic load after resumption of the educational activities.

Wardens say it is a very difficult task for them to regulate traffic manually as people don’t follow their instructions. They also face problems in fixing the violators as they have to ensure smooth flow of traffic.

They say manual traffic regulation is not a permanent solution.Shopkeepers having their businesses near the main intersections say they did not know when last time repair of these signals had been done. They say when the corporation was intact the officials used to repair the signals to keep the traffic affairs smooth, however, now for a couple of years no repair work has been done.

They often see quarrel among motorists and the wardens and traders have to intervene to diffuse the situation. They say manual traffic regulation could prove fatal for the wardens as the motorists try to cross the roads without seeing the wardens.

The newly appointed city traffic officer, Hassan Afzal told Dawn that he had visited the entire city and checked the traffic signals. He said efforts had been initiated to repair the faulty signals with the help of philanthropists.

“We have repaired four to five faulty signals recently and efforts are afoot to make all the signals functional,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2020