78,000 passenger vehicles plying Peshawar roads without permits

PESHAWAR: Around 78,000 vehicles are still plying the city roads without having official documents despite the fact that several actions were taken against such automobiles in the provincial capital.

Among such vehicles, the highest number is of auto-rickshaws. Most of the drivers do not have licences. Though the traffic mess has reduced to a great extent after the roads alongside the Bus Rapid Transit have been constructed, the vehicles without permits are still a major cause of traffic jams in Peshawar.No new roads were constructed in the provincial capital in recent years. The last one was the Ring Road constructed over 25 years back. The city needs many roads and repair of several others to ensure smooth flow of traffic, especially during the peak hours. Besides, it needs to regularise the undocumented motorbikes and passenger vehicles without permits. According to data collected by a government department, there are 106521 vehicles transporting passengers from one part of Peshawar to another but almost 78,900 of these buses, cars, coaches and auto-rickshaws do not have permits. A source said that a total of 61,000 auto-rickshaws are plying the city roads and the drivers of most of them do not follow traffic rules.

The biggest problem is that 39,642 of these rickshaws do not have permits to pick and drop passengers within the city. The source added that roughly around 21,000 rickshaws hold permits to transport passengers in Peshawar. Besides, there are 31,755 three-wheelers (called Qingqis) being used as passenger vehicles in almost all the urban and suburban parts of the provincial capital. Not a single three-wheeler has any sort of permit or registration. Also, a huge majority of the drivers of almost 93,000 rickshaws and qingqis do not have driving licenses. Most of the drivers are untrained, causing road accidents and traffic jams.The source added that out of around 12,400 cabs, only 5,475 have permits to carry passengers. Around 6,925 of these taxis are without any kind of permit to transport people. As many as 38 out of over 350 wagons, 78 of over 360 Mazda buses, 119 150 buses ply Bara Road, 227 of around 270 coaches and 198 of over 230 pickups being used as passenger vehicles are plying without permits,” the source added.