Police seek ban on CNG fitted school vans in: Pindi

Rawalpindi: The City Traffic Police (CTP) Rawalpindi has requested the district administration to impose a ban on CNG cylinder-fitted school vans.

The administration has also been urged to direct the District and Regional Transport Authority to issue special route permits to all school vans and register the vehicles being used for Pick and Drop facility for the school children.

In order to ensure safety of the children, the authorities concerned should also issue fitness certificates to the school vans after proper checking of the vehicles, the CTO said. According to Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) Rawalpindi, Muhammad Bin Ashraf, the CTP was making all out efforts to protect lives of the road users. He informed that the CTP had started action against substandard CNG cylinder-fitted school vans. The traffic police had found a number of school vans fitted with CNG cylinders underneath seats which was not only dangerous but also illegal defined under section 199/122 of Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1965, he added.

“It is therefore decided that an active campaign should be initiated against the violators. For this purpose, a special team was deputed to take strict legal action under the supervision of senior officers,” he informed.

The parents had also been pressing the authorities to impose a ban on the use of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in the school vans. CTP had launched crackdown last year against Public Service Vehicles (PSVs) and School and College vehicles plying on roads having substandard CNG cylinders and lodged 102 FIRs under section 285 and 286 of PPC against the drivers who were sent behind the bars.

The CTP also issued challan slips to the rules violators under massive crackdown on PSVs, having low quality and substandard CNG cylinders installed in unsafe and dangerous manner.

He informed that under a special campaign against use of illegal, unauthorized and substandard CNG cylinders in wagons, buses and other vehicles, Traffic Wardens checked thousands of vehicles during 2018 and lodged 93 FIRs against violators.

During the campaign 4,780 vehicles were challaned as their cylinders were not installed in accordance with approved measures of Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) and Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan (HDIP).

He said, to ensure safety of the citizens and to avoid the mishaps due to substandard CNG cylinders, the operation had been accelerated. He said the drivers and owners of the vehicles would not be allowed to put the lives of the citizens into danger and install illegal and low quality cylinders in their vehicles. These crackdowns would be continued in future, he added.