KARACHI, Dec 9: The city district government has approached Sindh governor for issuing an ordinance to transfer the traffic police’s planning and control system to the local authorities in line with the federal government’s devolution of power programme.

A top city government official said the Sindh government had responded positively to the proposal but a few issues needed to be addressed before a formal launching of the traffic system under the CDGK through wardens.

“Of course, it needs a piece of legislation and such a requirement can be met through an ordinance, which would be later taken up by the elected assembly,” City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal told Dawn.

He said the action by the Governor’s House would transfer the traffic system from the Sindh police to the city district government within eight months.

The city government is inspired by the initiative of Lahore’s local authorities, which took over the traffic system of the country’s second largest city, also taking the high-ups on board in preparing the proposal, and it has impressed everyone concerned.

“We support the city nazim’s proposal and have been a part of the whole exercise,” said DIG Traffic Wajid Ali Durrani. “The fate of the existing traffic police staff should not be a matter of concern as they can be merged with the regular police force and can be hired for training of the newly-selected staff by the city government.”

He said the current traffic police strength was far short of a required force for the city as only 1,300 policemen were available on a daily basis, whereas ideally there should be some 10,000 personnel controlling traffic.

Introduced in 2000 in line with President Pervez Musharraf’s devolution of power scheme, the local government system under the Sindh Local Government Ordinance (SLGO) also allows the district governments to regulate the traffic system. Sections 191(2) and 192(2) of the fifth schedule of the SLGO strengthen the city government’s argument for the organization and regulation of traffic.

The SLGO also wants the local governments to make “such arrangements, by by-laws, for the control and regulation of traffic as may be necessary to prevent the danger to and ensure the safety, convenience and comfort of the public” in the ‘Transport and traffic’ subject of its sixth schedule.

The city government, which plans to hire initially some 6,000 wardens, also eyes a huge investment from the provincial government to set up the traffic planning and control system, which is believed to be an issue of debate in the power corridors.

About three billion rupees would be spent on the system designed by the city government, which the local authorities suggested to the Sindh government to finance but had not received a approval for it.

“But it’s just a proposal and can be negotiated before the final approval,” said the city nazim. “We are ready to bear the annual Rs1.7 billion cost to run the system through our own resources. But we need support from the higher authorities, who have been cooperative in several city government projects, to set up the system.”

Though the DIG traffic showed support for the local government’s proposal, sources believe it could spark a tug of war within the department to resist the transfer of the services from Sindh police to the local authorities.

“There are millions of rupees at stake in terms of regular bribe amounts by transporters and other resources,” said a city government official close to the proposal preparation. “But we have planned some preemptive moves to block such resistance from inside the traffic police department.”

Transporters, the major stakeholders of the whole system and unsatisfied with the current system, however are not bothered about the shift of command from one authority to the other.

Karachi Transport Ittehad (KTI) President Irshad Hussain Bukhari has admitted several times giving millions of rupees in bribes to the traffic police on a monthly basis so that they turn a blind eye to traffic violations. He has doubts also about the attitude of the traffic wardens when they come to power under the city government.

“If the city government appoints such wardens, we suspect that the MQM activists will be actually controlling that system,” he said. “We want respectful attitude from either side. There is no doubt that the current system doesn’t work properly but its replacement should serve the purpose.”

Though he appreciated the city government’s arrangements made in Ramazan for traffic control through volunteers, he went on to say that in most cases their attitude was worse than traffic police officials.

“Our drivers were beaten up many times near Burnes Road for nominal violations and a number of vehicles of our members were damaged badly as a penalty. It’s vandalism rather than traffic regulation. We want a transparent system controlled by either authority,” he added.