KARACHI, Dec 26: The proposed plan of Vehicle Identification and Monitoring System by the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) has put the proposal for the establishment of the National Vehicle Authority (NVA) on the back burner, well-informed sources told Dawn.

They said that the NVA had been proposed in the late 1990s to be established under the ministry of interior aiming at developing an integrated and coordinated databank of all registered vehicles in the country, besides helping in identifying increase and decrease of vehicle theft and gathering information about criminals. The databank would be called the National Vehicle Databank (NVDB).

The sources said that the plan had been discussed in successive meetings but could not materialize. The idea to establish the NVA floated after a computerized databank was established in Karachi and the figures of snatched and stolen vehicles were analyzed. According to an estimate, a loss of more than one billion rupees is caused to the national economy every year due to the snatching and theft of vehicles. The estimate is based on the average cost of a four-wheeler at Rs400,000 and a two-wheeler at Rs40,000.

However, the sources fear that the NVA idea will never materialize after Nadra has come out with an alternative plan of vehicle identification and monitoring system.

The Nadra had claimed that the VIMS had been conceived, designed, and developed by it for checking vehicle theft. It claimed that the project was a ground-based tracking system which would not only provide the law-enforcement authorities to monitor vehicles’ movement, but also to regulate and manage traffic flow during peak hours and even in cases of emergency.

The sources in different government departments, however, disputed Nadra’s claim and said that the system was not meant for checking vehicle theft, but was globally used to track the record of toll tax and other industrial purposes. The technology is known as radio frequency identification technology (RFID), first invented by Harry Stockman who introduced it in his 1948 report of “Communication by Means of Reflected Power”.

According to Nadra, a chip called VINTAG would be provided to vehicle owners and within a period of six months, the chip would be issued for each and every vehicle. According to plan, initially 19 check-posts would be established. Of them, 10 would be fixed check-posts and the remaining ones would be mobile units.

Three control centres would also be set up to check and monitor movement of vehicles. To curb vehicle theft, a passive windshield radio frequency sticker would be used as a transponder for Vehicle Identity Number, from which the radio frequency infrared readers, placed at designated highways and roads, would be used to read the VIN.

Under the project, it would be mandatory for every vehicle to get a chip. A suspected car with its VITS chip removed will be identified instantly, it added.

Contrary to the claims by Nadra, officials in the Sindh government expressed their reservations and objected to this Rs578 million project. They were of the view that the project was not feasible in the existing environment as the funds and resources were meagre to maintain the project. They said that Nadra would install the project and hand it over to the provincial government. The police would ultimately be assigned the task and given the responsibility to maintain the equipment. However, police officers quietly raised objections saying that they could not run the project as their budget did not permit sparing of funds to meet the recurring expenses. Besides, they said, the available manpower was insufficient to run the project.

They pointed out that Karachi had 27 known exit/entry points and the police were unable to man all of these routes. At every point, a building, secretarial staff, law-enforcers, a response force, permanent electricity and phone connections and standby generators were required to install monitoring devices for the VIMS.

The effectiveness of the Nadra’s proposed project was conditional with the availability and proper functioning of all these facilities.

They said that the main problem was not transportation of vehicles but the recovery of vehicles.

A police officer said: “A stolen vehicle transported to other province or city is detected but there are many loopholes in the law to bring it back as it is re-registered in some other city or province.”

The officials stressed upon establishing an integrated and centralized computerized databank of vehicles so that a vehicle could not be re-registered, besides having the record of those involved in the racket. They said that a National Vehicle Authority in the federal capital and the provincial vehicle authorities in each province was the need of the hour instead of carrying out experiments on Nadra’s flawed project.

The Citizen-Police Liaison Committee has expressed dissatisfaction over the Nadra’s proposed plan and said that it would not provide logistic support. However, the CPLC was ready to provide moral support to the officials who would run the project.

CPLC Chief Sharfuddin Memon told Dawn that Nadra’s proposed project was not the tracking system but was merely a vehicle monitoring system.

The sources said that the officials failed to raise objections openly as at the outset in every meeting the participants were told that President Pervez Musharraf was keen to see the Nadra project implemented. They said that the NVA was a better option to overcome the vehicle theft in the country where a databank of vehicles and criminals would be available. Besides, the coordination among provinces through the provincial vehicle authority would help recover and shift the stolen vehicles back to the city from where it was stolen.

They were of the view that Nadra itself was an authority, and in case the NVA was established, it would also be an autonomous authority that would not allow Nadra to interfere in its purview provided the Nadra was consulted for any technical assistance.

The sources said that if the NVA was established, the Nadra’s status might only be a service provider for NVA and it would not be able to initiate such a project.