The control of traffic in the city continues to go from bad to worse due to apathy and neglect by the traffic police as frequent traffic jams occur in almost all parts of the city both during morning and evening rush hours, resulting in the loss of the commuters’ precious time. The situation has assumed alarming proportions.
The situation has remained more or less the same every Ramazan. High-ups issue orders and their orders go unimplemented for lack of empathy on the part of the authorities.
According to the IG’s order, high officials of the traffic police should be present at busy intersections and roundabouts to monitor and to keep a tab over the performance of their subordinates. But nothing of the sort is visible on the city roads.
There is total disorder on important roads such as M. A. Jinnah Road, Saddar area, Hasan Square, North Nazimabad, Sharea Faisal and other roads during morning and evening rush hours. Drivers of buses and minibuses in an effort to reach their destinations flout all rules and regulations under the nose of the traffic police.
There are no traffic police constables to prevent drivers from stopping buses in the middle of roads. Even if there is a constable at a bus stop, he turns a blind eye to unlawful doings of drivers. Traffic constables are usually on the lookout for overloaded pickups, cars and motorcycles to extort money from them.
Commenting on the situation a bitter commuter said: “ Directives issued by high police officials are never taken seriously by their subordinates. Never any public welfare programme has been executed in latter and in spirit. There has been three cuts in the prices of diesel over the past one and a half months, but the transporters have not even symbolically reduced the fares. It is simply because of the government’s apathy, it has remained unmoved and given a free hand to fleece the people. What kind of government do we have. Or whether do we have any government at all. This is height of apathy.”
Most of the order-issuing authorities lived in posh areas of Defence, Clifton or PECHS where there was no traffic congestion problem, he added.
Citing earlier orders of high officials of the traffic police, he said a recent order on not allowing standing passenger in coaches was not implemented, not even for a day.
Similarly, the directive of the Sindh ombudsman to the DIG traffic to ensure installation of silencers in rickshaws plying the Karachi roads also went unheeded.—PPI