LAHORE: Amid recent large-scale police action against underage drivers and those having no licences, the City Traffic Police (CTP) witnessed a record 788 percent increase in the issuance of new driving licences.

Following the huge influx of the citizens requiring driving licences, the traffic police department increased the facilities to 33 to meet the requirement.

There were also some reports that the Lahore police were misusing the campaign by lodging cases against those citizens/drivers who were carrying learning or expired licences. The situation dragged the attention of the higher authorities who intervened and stopped the police from registering FIRs against the citizens/drivers mentioned above.

An audio message of Lahore Chief Traffic (CTO) retired Capt Mustansar Feroze got viral when he expressed his utter displeasure over registration of FIRs against those citizens who were possessing the learning or expired licence, saying that the action may spoil the recently launched large-scale drive in good-faith.

He directed the traffic police wardens to restrict the action against underage drivers or those who were travelling without driving licences only.

According to the official figures, the Lahore CTP issued over 60,000 driving licences to the citizens at all the 33 centres during the last three days. The Punjab police launched crackdowns on the underage drivers across the province in the wake of an accident that claimed lives of six members of a family in Defence Housing Authority in Lahore when a teenage student rashly drove his car and hit another one which was carrying the family.

The issue had brought to the spotlight the underage driving, prompting the chief minister Punjab for massive action against them across the province, especially in Lahore to stop further fatal accidents.

According to the official figures, a total of 4,373 FIRs have been registered against underage drivers since Nov 11 in Lahore alone.

Similarly, as many as 3,234 cases were lodged against those who were driving without licence.

The police action led to a phenomenal surge in issuance of driving licences when a huge number of citizens rushed to the city’s driving centres to get licence.

Lahore CTO Mustansar Feroze told Dawn a total of 337,067 licences have been issued during the last one month at Lahore alone at an average 11,236 licences per day.

He said the CTP had issued 42,323 driving licences during the corresponding period of last year, registering a record 788 percent increase.

Mr Feroze said the last three days have witnessed a massive surge as on average daily 20,000 driving licences were issued in Lahore.

“Since last one week, the average issuance of licences in Lahore surged to 15,865 licences per day”, the CTO said.

In order to facilitate the huge number of citizens turned up at the centres, he said, all Police Khidmat Markazs (PKMs) have been made functional 24/7.

In addition, the number of mobile PKMs has also been increased from two to 10 in the provincial capital, he said.

“We are expecting the number of driving licences may increase to 600,000 by the end of December”, the CTO said.

Following the unexpected rush of the citizens, he said, the traffic police department has also expanded the scope of issuance of driving licences to the doorsteps of the citizens.

For this purpose, the department has launched and then increased the number of Mobile Learner Vans to 11 in Lahore.

The vans would visit the various spots/localities/markets where the citizens would get the facility of getting their learning licences renewed besides having learning licences.

There were a total eight testing centres in the provincial capital at Manawan, DHA, Arfa Karim Tower, Bahria Town, Ichra, Liberty Chowk of Gulrber etc.

He said the department was all set to establish three more driving testing centres in Cantonment, Kahna and Shahdara areas to further facilitate the citizens.

About the Liberty Chowk facility where the number of citizens were more than any other Centre, he said, his department has added four more mobile learner vans besides four additional PKMs.

The department has also increased the special counters to 26 and sitting capacity for the citizens at the Liberty Chowk main point.

To a question, the CTO Lahore said that the developed countries were giving significant importance to the driving licences.

“There was no concept of driving without licence or underage driving in Europe, America and other parts of the world”, he said and lamented that this crime/unethical practice was going rampage in Pakistan only.

Giving an example in this respect, he said, in Lahore there were 7.3 million registered vehicles till Jan of this year.

Of these registered vehicles, the driving licences were issued against only 1.3 million and this trend showed a “criminal mindset’ of a large number of citizens who were driving on the roads without licences fearlessly and shamefully.

Following the grave situation, the City Traffic Police had escalated a drive to encourage the citizens to get their driving licences besides punishing them with heavy fines.

Resultantly, he said, the 1.5 million driving licences were issued since Jan so far in Lahore alone.

“Still we are far behind from the target of issuing licences against the total registered vehicles’ ’, the CTO Lahore said adding that the recent campaign launched in the wake of the DHA fatal accident helped a lot to bring a large number of citizens in the network.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2023