ISLAMABAD, June 7: The violators of traffic rules in the capital city are enjoying themselves with the absolute impunity as the traffic police have no challan books to penalise them and they are going scot-free before the very eyes of the traffic managers.  The traffic officials have been performing their duties without challan books for the last two months, Dawn has learnt reliably.

The police sources said that the challan books were last published in previous year after the budget 2011-12. The police got out of the stock in April 2012 and the senior ITP officials got the books printed with help of citizens committee and one challan book was given to each ticket issuing officer.

On average 25 to 30 challan books were needed in a day due to a large number of violations. But the 200 ticket issuing officers have been working with a single challan book each for the last one month and majority of the books are about to be finished.

Superintendent of Traffic Police Khalid Rasheed when contacted said that the ITP was facing shortage of challan books as the stock was near to an end. The police had already asked Printing Press of Pakistan to print the books and the new stock would be made available within a few weeks.

He further said that as such there was no shortage of funds as the police had also got the budget.

However, the sources said that the police were facing severe shortage of funds and day-to-day affairs were being done through stopgap arrangements.

A senior ITP officer said that about 2,000 motorists were found involved in traffic violations at different roads of the capital during a day.

But since May the ITP had been facing shortage of challan books to impose fines as punishment on the traffic violators, he added.

The ITP high-ups found a unique way to resolve the issue as the traffic officials were asked not to issue tickets to the motorists on minor violations and let them go with just a warning, a ticket issuing officer said.

“We are asked to educate the traffic violators, and the ticket should only be issued in case of major traffic violations,” he said and added: “We have been asked to focus on the warnings instead of issuing fine tickets.”

The situation turned in favour of the traffic rules violators as red light jumpers, reckless and rash drivers were roaming about the city without any fear. Besides, the major traffic violators – drivers of public transport – were also rejoicing at the helplessness of the ITP and violated the rules with impunity.

Earlier, in 2011 from January to April, the ITP faced the same situation as the challan books could not be printed due to non-availability of funds.