Negligence of the City Traffic Police, Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) and Excise Taxation and Narcotics Control (ET&NC) Department has been exposed as Lahoris resort to laminating or tampering their vehicles’ registration plates to evade e-challans and surveillance through PSCA cameras.
According to a report, while non-computerised plates are not uncommon in the provincial capital, a significant increase has been observed in the use of tampered and laminated registration plates as well.
There are lamination sheets available in the market and once applied, the PSCA cameras cannot read the number plates, thus providing drivers protection from e-challan, the report quoted a trader at one of Lahore’s largest automotive market, the Montgomery Road.
The shopkeeper said that these lamination sheets were not commonly available and are only sold secretly. He further said that a person could get a single number plate laminated for Rs150-200 in parts of Chauburji, Township and Johar Town.
According to a PSCA official, the tactics used by the people to hide their number plates are creating a hurdle in penalising traffic violators. The official said that the authority can only catch such people when they are on a surveillance operation, otherwise, it is the responsibility of the traffic police and the ET&NC Department to prevent this from happening.
The report quoted an ET&NC official as saying that the department was not entertaining complaints related to computerised plates as their role was to only issue them besides helping in the enforcement of its display. “Chapter 8 of the Motor Vehicle Ordinance mandates cops to keep a check on improper and tampered number plates.”
Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) Captain (r) Syed Hammad Abid, on the other hand, said that the traffic police were penalising people whose number plates were found to be fake, tampered or laminated. “We have penalised 64,283 persons for driving without registered number plates and 76,655 for having improper ones.”
