Bearing the brunt

A traffic warden’s struggle to curb violation of safety rules

Lahore: “How dare you stop me? You don’t know me, I’m a relative of a big shot. You, traffic cops, issue us challan only to pocket your share; the more challans you issue, the more you mint money.”

Such slurs are constantly being hurled at traffic wardens deployed on roads, particularly in the walled city.

Sometimes, wardens get upset and respond to such uncalled-for remarks but most of the time they remain at the receiving end of abuse.

Throughout 2022, fewer than 10 incidents were reported where traffic wardens misbehaved with motorists. On the contrary, there were more than 250 reports in which they were subjected to abuse on reminding traffic rules to people. The provincial capital has a population of more than 13 million and is a growing metropolis.

In 2006, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, who was Punjab’s chief minister at the time, introduced city traffic police while recruiting 3,000 officials. This included 2,400 wardens and 600 constables. Since then, they have been performing the toughest job in Pakistan’s second-largest city.

With two stars on their shoulders, wardens not only have to deal with the unwelcoming behaviour of the motorists but they have to perform this duty in extreme weather — the scorching heat of summer, the freezing cold of winter and the inundated water during monsoon. To make things worse, noise, dust and air pollution are other major problems traffic wardens have to bear while performing their duties as time and again Lahore becomes very polluted.

photos: Mohsin Raza/Bol News

Lahore’s population has been increasing manifolds since the inception of modern traffic police in 2006, but the number of staff is on the decline.

In 2006, there were 3,000 officials to deal with 3.8 million vehicles in the city, spokesperson of Lahore city traffic police Muhammad Arif told Bol News.

“Now, vehicles have increased to 7 million including 4.8 million motorcycles and 2.2 million cars and other vehicles. The strength of the force at the moment has shrunk from 3,000 to 2,800 in 2022.”

In 2018, the first badge of wardens was promoted to the rank of inspectors and to date, only 148 traffic wardens could be promoted to this rank, he added. “The rest of the lot are still waiting for their first promotion since joining the force some 16 years ago.”

On the other hand, a senior traffic police official stated that promotions had been given according to age rather than following any other criteria. “There was no exam including the departmental one that was held for these promotions as those were awarded as per seniority in age.”

Due to political differences, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) did not introduce traffic wardens service rules till 2016, 10 years after the force was introduced.

This was because this service was introduced by their arch-rival Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q). The PML-N ruled Punjab from 2008 till 2018.

Traffic wardens are perhaps the most educated lot in law enforcement agencies. Reportedly, 170 out of the total 2,400 are MPhil degree holders, 3 officials have PhDs and 80 per cent of the force holds Masters degrees as well.

According to the spokesperson, the traffic police of Lahore have been dealing with multiple tasks besides performing their basic duty of managing the traffic.

photos: Mohsin Raza/Bol News

“We deal with wrong parking, encroachments, road engineering, beggars and protests. Encroachment is the job of Lahore Municipal Corporation and parking is the job of Lahore Development Authority (LDA).”

Arif elaborated that checking plazas, their parking space, building laws and maps is entirely the job of the LDA. More than 1,500 protest rallies have been taken out in Lahore in 2022 which were managed by the traffic police.

“These 2,400 traffic police officials are dealing with 1,700 kilometres of roads in Lahore alone. We should have at least 6,000 personnel to deal with such a large population, area and number of vehicles,” Arif further said.

The spokesperson further said they deploy wardens in three shifts of 8 hours each. Responding to a question, he said all the basic facilities including raincoats, caps, blankets, umbrellas and masks are provided to the force by the government.

The traffic police officials also complain about the ill-treatment they get from ‘political masters’ and the policymakers. “We still have the same vehicles and other equipment given to us in 2006 to deal with traffic matters. On the other hand, motorway and ring road police get new vehicles after every five years,” the senior traffic police official argued.

Motorway police don’t deal with protests, traffic signals, parking and encroachments but even then, they enjoy more perks and privileges than us, he regretted. They have a proper service structure in place which we don’t have, he pointed out. To another question, he said many wardens sometimes hesitate to perform their duties at Shahdara Chowk, Mall Road, Canal Road, Lorri Adda and Bund Road due to heavy traffic and pollution. “They do this to avoid getting sick.”

Currently, screening of all traffic wardens is taking place at Police Lines Qila Gujjar Singh to know about their health issues, he revealed. “Around 8% to 10% of traffic cops are being diagnosed for various diseases caused by pollution.”

On the other hand, the burden of traffic is being entirely handled by traffic police this winter when fog and smog on motorways and ring roads are disrupting the city. We don’t get a single penny from challans, the spokesman claimed. The city traffic police have issued more than 3.5 million challans this year including 800,000 for not wearing a helmet. Moreover, over 6,500 FIRs have been registered for violation of traffic rules this year.