FAISALABAD: Driving and traveling on Faisalabad city roads is frustrating the people when 17 signals, of 24, are out of order, and those functional have irregular sequencing and timing.

Several motorists said they had to sit longer at busy intersections for the signal to go green.

Fabric trader Riaz Ali rides his motorcycle on the city roads every day. He said the timing of signals at various points was faulty as if one side got 70 seconds green, the other would get only 30 seconds. “Why are all sides not treated equally?” he said.

Mr Ali said most of the time, wardens were found absent from regulating the traffic at busy intersections.

As the scorching heat drives them crazy, motorists try to jump the signals in the absence of wardens, Ahsan Ali, a college student, said. He suggested that the government computerise data of vehicles and maintain their record of violations. He said the habitual violators should be identified and punished.

Wardens have their own shares of complaints. One warden, sitting in a green belt area near the Bilal Chowk, told Dawn it was excruciating to perform eight-hour job in the middle of the road in summer. He said the intersections had no shadow while they had to arrange food, water and shelter on their own.

Traffic regulation in the summer drained them, he said, adding their senior officers were not aware of the field duty problems.

Traffic issues were recently discussed at a Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry standing committee meeting on law and order where Sohail Bin Rasheed said the traffic had gone mad for the last six months as signals were out of order at every important chowk. He blamed wardens for not performing their duties efficiently and that the traffic flow could not be improved only by ruthless ticketing.

The issue of broken lights have long been making rounds in the traffic police department.Then city traffic police officer Arif Shahbaz Wazir had raised the issue in January last. His successor Baka Muhammad admitted that 17 points had broken lights, adding that he had also raised the issue with senior officials several times.

He, however, defended wardens’ working, saying they were doing their duties at all intersections and sectors in charges were also checking them. Those skipping the duty faced departmental action.

Deputy Commissioner Salman Ghani said a non-government organisation (NGO) would maintain the signals while the district administration would monitor the performance of the NGO. He said primarily it was the duty of the municipal corporation to maintain the signals.

Calls to city mayor Abdul Razzaq Malik to get his version were not successful.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2017