Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP) has decided to issue driving licenses to only those applicants with Islamabad addresses on their Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs).
SSP (Traffic) Malik Matloob said this step has been taken to discourage corruption and illegal agents, who offer their CNICs to unknown people against money and get the license in connivance with the officials.
The basic purpose, he said, is to discourage such agents who make about 15-20 affidavits on a single CNIC.
For applicants from other than Islamabad districts, an affidavit must be submitted by their relatives belonging to Islamabad that both know each other and the signatory of the affidavit took the responsibility of applicant.
Last week, the SSP (Traffic) Malik Matloob directed his staff not to allow applicants having other than Islamabad address on their CNIC to enter in the premises of ITP office.
Hundreds of applicants from various districts rejected by the ITP office complained that such orders should be made public through some media before the restrictions are imposed.
Driving license of Islamabad is issued by the office of Senior Superintendent of Police (Traffic). A person has to obtain a learner’s permit, issued by ITP, and complete the mandatory 6-week training period before applying for a regular license to drive.
The person needs to appear for a test on the date assigned and a regular license is issued for a period of 5 years upon successful completion of the driving test.
Referring to Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), he said that any employer in Islamabad can confirm about his employees through affidavit, who are serving from other districts. Such people with affidavits of their department within Islamabad or holding card of their office in Islamabad can apply for the license.
On the other hand, applicants said that imposing overall ban on those from other districts especially adjoining districts of Islamabad was very odd. Many of them were of the view that it was the high-tech era and such agents can be detected easily as well as such misuse should have been stopped.
They were of the view that there should be a system in place that anyone offering his/her CNIC to more than 2-3 persons can be easily traced by the traffic police staff entering data of applicant on computer during license issuance process.
The driving license issued by ITP contains special security features inscribed in it. The license cannot be forged or tampered by anybody and all the specifications of the license holder are imprinted in the license.
A police source said that as many as 500-600 applicants visit ITP office daily for getting driving licenses and the department is issuing around 150 licenses daily on average.
“If the issuance of fresh licenses have been confined for only citizens or job holders of Islamabad, revenue of ITP will not only come down but large number of labour going abroad would also suffer,” the source added.