The increasing number of smoke emitter and old-age vehicles on the busy roads of twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad are hazardous to the health of residents besides damaging capital’s beauty.
The black smoke belching out from the exhaust pipes of cars, trucks, vans and other smoke emitter and old vehicles moving on roads is a big menace for environment.
Residents demanded a mechanism to banned un-repaired and smoke emitter vehicles for ensuring the protection of their health.
A resident of sector F-6/1, Fahad Ali said that un-repaired and old vehicles not only producing unhealthy air to breathe but it also disturbed the traffic flow. He said it was difficult to drive cars on highways in evening in presence of heavy traffic emitting smoke and using high pressure horns. He said that many people do to not bother to carry proper maintenance of their vehicles that cause air pollution. He said that smoke emitter vehicles are not only dangerous to the human health but also to the plant.
Dr Asif a medical practitioner said that air pollution by vehicles lead to chronic/lungs, Cardiovascular and Heart diseases.
“If you are behind an old car and see blue smoke coming out, be warned that you are breathing in tiny droplets of nasty oil,” he added.
The president of taxicab association of the twin cities, Malik Aftab said that older and non repaired taxies should be banned. He said that RTA office Rawalpindi should properly examine the maintenance of cabs before issuing fitness permits.
Islamabad Regional Transport Authority (RTA) Secretary Lubna Riaz said that authority had issued fitness permits to only around 200 taxies while others had gotten permits from RTA Rawalpindi. She said that authority was forcing fitness of taxi cars.
An official of Islamabad Traffic Police said that authority is considering banning moving of taxicab below than 2002 model in Islamabad for protection of environment.
In Jun 2013, the law was started to implement here but after the protest of taxi drivers the issue was pressed temporarily. He said that owners of old and un-repaired vehicles are being given challan tickets while the education teams of ITP are also functioning efficiently to guide the people in this regard.