PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa transport department on Monday cancelled the registration of the manufacturers and distributors of four-stroke motorcycle-rickshaws insisting the move will address traffic congestion in the provincial capital.

It also claimed that the initiative would break the auto-rickshaw supply chain.

The department said that initially, unregistered rickshaws would be impounded and later, rickshaws would be gradually removed from the capital’s roads.

The three-wheeler manufacturing units, whose registration have been cancelled in different parts of the province, total 21.

Transport dept says rickshaws to be gradually removed from Peshawar

In a letter to the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority, the transport department said that the licences of the manufacturers and dealers of three-wheelers, including motorcycle rickshaws not meeting required specifications, motor-cab rickshaws, and cargo loaders, had been cancelled with an immediate effect.

It also asked the excise department to cancel the registration of all dealers of three-wheelers, while the district administrations was told to seal their premises.

In the letter, the department said that it had banned the issuance of the motor vehicle examiner verification for the registration of three-wheelers since Feb 2016 in light of the Peshawar High Court’s and provincial cabinet’s decisions.

It also said that the task force on traffic management plan had declared that three-wheelers were a major contributor to traffic congestion in the provincial capital.

When contacted, commissioner of Peshawar division Riaz Khan Mehsud said that the traffic issue in the provincial was so serious that drastic measures were required and therefore, restriction on three-wheelers had been enforced.

He said that the provincial capital had over 30,000 registered and unregistered rickshaws each.

Mr Mehsud said that following the move, the administration would seal the premises of the four-stroke three-wheelers manufactures and dealers.

He said that the province had motorcycle-rickshaws everywhere.

Meanwhile, provincial transport director Fahad Ikram Qazi told Dawn that the decision on four-stroke rickshaws was made under the traffic management plan chalked out in consultation with various stakeholders.

He said that the traffic management plan included several administrative measures to address traffic congestion in the provincial capital.

“The administrative measures include structural interventions related to civil works, road markings, awareness campaigns, and installation of traffic lights,” he said.

The transport director also said that the government would ban rickshaws in stages.

He said that in the initial phase, the focus of the initiative would be on the enforcement side with the authorities impounding illegal rickshaws, which were nearly 50 per cent of the city’s rickshaw population.

Mr Qazi said in the second phase, the authorities had planned to crack down on rickshaws with ‘tempered numbers’ and those registered in other districts.

He added that new routes would be notified for rickshaws afterwards.

The director, however, said simultaneously, the authorities were working to disrupt the three-wheeler supply chain and end their further manufacturing and distribution to do away with the menace.

He said that despite a ban on the registration of auto-rickshaws in 2016, those public transport vehicles were being manufactured.

Mr Qazi said that in the long run, the solution for Peshawar’s major transport issues like all other major urban centres was the establishment of an intelligent transport system, which was an ‘integrated, digitised and censor-based coordinated system of traffic control’.

When contacted, a three-wheeler manufacturer based in Mardan expressed ignorance about the cancellation of registration.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2022