KARACHI, July 22: Instructions by the higher authorities to the officials concerned for controlling environmental pollution caused by smoke-emitting and noise-producing vehicles seem to have gone unheeded.

Public vehicles are issued fitness certificate after every six months by the traffic police department, but the condition of vehicles plying the roads tells a different story.

The traffic police have the powers to book and fine smoke-emitting vehicles, but they lack powers to cancel fitness certificates of smoke-emitting commercial vehicles. The only authority to cancel fitness certificates is the Motor Vehicle Inspection Branch, which is also responsible for issuance of these certificates to vehicles found fit to ply the roads.

Sources in the traffic police department said if the powers to cancel fitness certificates were given to the traffic police, hundreds of smoke- emitting buses and minibuses could be stopped from plying the city roads. The mere imposition of fine on unfit buses was not a solution of the problem, they added.

At most traffic intersections in the city, the traffic police can be seen issuing challans for traffic violations. This activity has gained momentum since the announcement by President Pervez Musharraf during his visit to the Central Police Office on Dec 26 last year that the traffic police department out of the total fine on violators of traffic laws would receive 30 per cent, in which the share of the traffic police personnel would be 50 per cent.

Talking to PPI, DIG Traffic Saud Mirza said the rest of the 50 per cent of the fine money would be used for purchase of equipment for the traffic police and to effect improvement in the traffic system in the city.

He said a summary had been sent to the Sindh government for further increasing the ratio keeping in view the financial problems faced by the department in streamlining the traffic system in Karachi and in increasing the number of traffic constables.

Comparing the number of challans issued by the traffic police before the announcement of reward to the number of challans after the announcement of reward, he said from May 28, 2001 to December 31, 2001, the traffic police had realized Rs30.32 million from violators, and from January 2002 to July 2002 they had recovered Rs70.30 million from offenders.

These figures show that the amount recovered after the announcement of reward is more than double what it was before.

However, the traffic police have failed to pay attention to smoke-emitting vehicles. People are of the view that by giving a similar incentive to the traffic police air and noise pollution too could be effectively checked.

A PCSIR study on environmental pollution has revealed that in some places in the city, especially near Tibet Centre in Saddar and Empress Market, there is a high content of lead in smoke which is a major cause of cerebral disorders, lung and heart diseases. Physicians corroborate the findings of the PCSIR study. M. A. Jinnah road can well be described as a smoke tunnel.

The Environmental Protection Agency, Sindh, remains indifferent to smoke- emitting vehicles on the plea that it lacks scientific equipment needed for the purpose. Moreover, it lacks the necessary powers for th implementation of environmental laws.

People are generally of the view that there are hardly any chance of a campaign against smoke-emitting being successful as most public transport vehicles allegedly belong to policemen. Another big hurdle is the stranglehold of the transport mafia.

The transport mafia has not allowed such campaigns to succeed as they get these stopped by threatening wheel-jam strike.

The city Nazim, Naimatullah Khan, during his visit to China, Iran and the USA signed MoUs for import of environment-friendly CNG-run large-sized buses. Besides, the Sindh government has also offered a number of incentives to the private sector for import of buses to overcome the transport problem in the city. However, all these plans are on paper only.—PPI