CM orders steps to ease traffic congestion in city

Murad tells administration to open parking plazas of commercial buildings within 10 days, remove illegal parking lots and encroachments

Karachi 

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, taking a policy decision to resolve the traffic congestion issue in Karachi, has directed the city administration to reopen closed parking areas of commercial buildings, including shopping plazas, within the next 10 days and to also remove illegal parking lots and encroachments from important roads and areas.

He took the decision while presiding over a meeting on traffic management issues at the Chief Minister House on Thursday evening. The meeting was attended by Transport Minister Syed Nasir Shah, IGP AD Khowaja, Principal Secretary Naveed Kamran Baloch, Transport Secretary Taha Farooqui, DIG Traffic Ameer Shaikh and others.

Briefing the chief minister, DIG Traffic Ameer Shaikh said Karachi had a population of 23 million with 3.9 million registered vehicles. The total strength of the traffic police in the city is 3,200, and that showed that on average one traffic constable had to manage 1,031 vehicles.

Quoting the figures of Lahore, he said that it had a population of 9.7 million with 2.2 million registered vehicles and the numerical strength of traffic police there was 3,100, and that showed that a traffic constable had to manage 677 vehicles on average.

Talking about road safety and traffic flow management, he said impediments in the traffic flow were caused by a daily increase in vehicles, lack of parking space, encroachments along the roads, road blockage due to protests, security reasons and rallies, heavy traffic movement, bad conditions of roads, stagnant sewage on roads and a lack of walking pavements/pedestrian bridges.

The chief minister said that most of the shopping plazas and commercial buildings had parking areas in their basements and on their first, second and other floors. “I have noticed that they have closed their parking areas; therefore, vehicles are parked on the roads,” he said and ordered the Karachi commissioner to get their parking areas opened within 10 days and report to him.

The shopping centers/commercial buildings on Tariq Road, Khalid Bin Waleed Road, II Chundrigar Road, shopping centers along the road from Teen Talwar to Do Talwar in Clifton areas and various other roads and buildings have parking spaces, but vehicles are still parked on roads.

IGP Khowaja said there were only three driving licences centers and around 50 percent of drivers had no driving licences. He pointed out that there were 88 traffic sections in the city, but 70 percent of them were located on footpaths, road corners and underneath bridges.

The provincial police chief further stated that there was no traffic headquarters in the city nor was there any yard to keep impounded vehicles. 

On this, the chief minister directed the IGP to prepare a plan to strengthen the traffic police so that the plane could be implemented in phases.

The meeting was told that over 8,000 traffic challans were issued every day,  and the total amount of the fines collected in 2013 was Rs253 million,  in 2014 it reached Rs403 million, and in 2015 the money thus collected rose to at Rs459 million.

The chief minister urged the police to educate people about traffic laws and said he would consider a proposal to include traffic awareness in the school syllabus.

He directed the IGP to prepare a plan to resolve the issues of the traffic police on a priority basis. “I want to equip the traffic police with the latest equipment and gadgets, but the traffic police training and capacity building must be done,” he said and directed the IGP to recommend recruitment in the traffic police so that their strength could be increased.