KARACHI, June 2: The traffic police will shortly have a most modern surveillance system with installation of powerful cameras at different points of the city to keep a check on violators of traffic rules, IGP Sindh, Syed Kamal Shah told PPI.

Initially, the surveillance cameras having a range of 12km will be installed at 20 points and later on the number will be increased according to requirements, he added.

The demonstration of the cameras has already been held and currently negotiations are underway with different companies for procurement of the cameras. “With the installation of the surveillance cameras, the traffic police will be able to keep a check on overspeeding and other violations,” he said.

He said a traffic information service was being launched through the media for creating awareness among the public, besides appointing citizens as traffic wardens.

Syed Kamal Shah said that new silencers for rickshaws had been designed and approved that would be noiseless and would also control smoke emission. The replacement process has started and the traffic police would ensure that all the rickshaws operating in the city replaced the silencers in a shortest possible time, he added.

As regards the ticket system, the IGP said it had proved successful as since January 1 to May 15 this year, 3,63,124 tickets were issued by the traffic police in Karachi for violations of various traffic rules. The fine of Rs47,510,100 was imposed, of which Rs391,26,450 were realized while 66,140 tickets were pending.

In order to facilitate vehicle owners, the traffic police took up the matter of bank charges with the authorities of National Bank of Pakistan and got it reduced from Rs20 to Rs12.

Besides, the bank timings for receiving the challans have been increased at ten NBP branches out of twenty, up to 5pm, while the NBP Awami Markaz branch will accept the challans till 10pm, he added.

Talking about performance of the reorganized anti-car lifting cell (ACLC), Syed Kamal Shah said that during January 1 to May 15, the ACLC police busted 39 gangs of car-lifters with arrest of 206 criminals.

The ACLC detected 190 cases and recovered 119 four-wheelers and 55 two-wheelers along with the criminals.

Responding a question about recruitment of constables, he said that this had been done for the first time on a merit basis which is evident from the fact that only 665 candidates could be selected out of thousands of candidates who applied for 4,799 vacancies throughout the province. The recruitment was made through a centralized system by a committee headed by DIG training while the entire process was observed by members of the army monitoring team, nazims, senior citizens, journalists, educationists and social workers.

The selected candidates include persons having masters, graduates, diploma holders, IT degree holders, mechanics, carpenters, mechanical engineers etc. They are now undergoing training and in order to give them incentives, it has been decided that the first five top position holders will be offered post of instructors at the training centres and after evaluating their performance they would be giver early promotion and bonus after three years, the IGP said.

Besides fire fighting, bomb disposal and other traditional subjects, subjects of public relations, human rights and community policing have been included in the police training syllabus, he added.—PPI