KARACHI, Nov 2: In the wake of a recent announcement by the Environment Protection Agency to launch a drive against smoke-emitting vehicles and to penalize them heavily, people have expressed their skepticism over the success of the campaign.

People claimed that the intention of the agency to come hard on transporters was no more than an eye-wash as transporters were flagrantly violating the traffic rules with the active connivance of EPA and traffic police and contributing significantly to environmental degradation.

They claim that the drive was aimed at pacifying the people who have started questioning the role of the EPA and Karachi Traffic police in curbing the environmental degradation and noise pollution which according to health experts had already crossed a critical level.

Doctors had recently warned the government that if redressal measures were not undertaken, a large number of people can fall victim to deadly diseases of lung cancer, T.B, asthma, eye and throat infection and others owing to uninterrupted emission of a large quantity of lethal gases in the air, including carbon monoxide, lead and zinc by thousands of vehicles daily in Karachi.

On several occasions, the EPA vowed to penalize the errant and faulty vehicles in Karachi and influence them not to risk lives of masses, all their promises failed to yield any tangible results.

Some commuters, when questioned about the drive, claimed that a strong nexus exists between transporters and traffic police department which is unprecedented in any other part of the country where rules and regulations are strictly implemented by the administration.

One of the commuters remarked that the defiant attitude of public vehicle owners can be gauged from the fact that they are grossly violating recent instructions of the high officials of traffic police according to which coaches charging Rs 9 to 11 from commuters must follow “seat-by-seat passenger rule”.

At least three rows of passengers in these coaches can be witnessed standing in these vehicles and during violent and rash driving by illiterate persons they move violently inside vehicles.

Similarly the instructions of the Sindh Ombudsman to the traffic police to reign over auto-rickshaws and influence them to install silencers in their vehicles have also failed to bear any result as a result 30,000 such tricycles have been given a free hand by the police to violate all laws with impunity which is also unprecedented across the country.

Under such a situation when the interest groups have assumed the shape of a mafia, how can any drive be result-oriented. Through their active collaboration, they have successfully foiled many attempts in the past by the city administration to mitigate the sufferings of helpless citizens of Karachi.

Whenever government announces launching any drive against errant transporters, they respond quickly by giving strike calls to force the administration to submit to their whims and misdemeanours, and, so far, this strategy on their part has always proved to be extremely successful.

Reacting drastically to intention of EPA of launching a campaign against faulty vehicles in Karachi and in pursuance of their old agenda, the transporters expressed their intention in Friday’s newspapers to observe a strike if the government did not rescind its decision to launch a drive against them.

They claim that the move would hurt their interests which clearly reflects that this time again their threatening attitude would bear fruit and the city administration is likely to crumble before their demands.—PPI