TAXILA: Five months on, scores of applicants including cars, motorcycles and rickshaw owners in Attock have yet to receive computerised number plates and smart registration cards from the Punjab Excise and Taxation Office (ETO).

Adding to their miseries, the traffic police have been issuing tickets to the owners who don’t have computerised number plates despite producing receipt of the ETO.

It has been observed that traffic warden in the district especially in urban areas have increasingly been issuing tickets to the vehicles without computerised number plates.

According to Punjab ETO sources, the Punjab government had computerised all the record of the motor registration branches across the Punjab in July 2007 at the cost of Rs517.236 million.

A motorist, Tahir Ali Khan said he has been waiting for the number plate of his car for the last five months.

A motorcyclist, Salar Khan said he had been driving his bike without a number plate for the past five months and had received tickets twice from traffic wardens for not installing computerised number plates.

To a question, he said he produced receipt for the application he had submitted for the number plate and registration card but the traffic warden refused to accept his plea.

Khursheed Ahmed, another applicant said he faced ire and fine from the traffic warden every week for not displaying the computerised number plates on his rickshaw.

He was of the view that traffic warden had launched a crackdown on the vehicles not carrying specific plates to meet the revenue target from issuance of traffic violation tickets. He questioned that why people bear the brunt of the department concerned inefficiency.

SI Ch Mohammad Ilyas, spokesperson for traffic police, however, rejected the claim saying the police gave tickets to only those rickshaws or motorcycle rickshaws owners who did not have valid documents.

He denied that they gave tickets to valid documents holders or those who had receipt of their application.

He clarified that most of drivers of Qingqi rickshaws, motorcycle rickshaw or CNG rickshaw got the vehicles on lease from leasing companies or private parties which did not give documents for security reasons.

On the other hand, an official of the Punjab Excise and Taxation Department, Attock when contacted confirmed that since February, over 2,000 people had been waiting for the number plates and registration cards.

When contacted, district excise and taxation officer, Mushtaq Shah said his office had sent applications to the central office, Lahore.

He said the department had repeatedly brought the matter to the notice of the provincial department, but to no avail. He said that in Attock, the documents and fees were collected from applicants and sent to main office Lahore which issued the number plates and the cards.

He blamed the delay on main office. However, he claimed that applicants were expected to get the number plates from next month.

While replying to a question, he said this year the excise office had achieved its revenue target well in time and collected Rs220 million.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2019