Rana Umair
In a major shift from the old traffic system to environment-friendly and modern methodology, the Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP) is soon going to introduce e-ticketing (paperless) system in the federal capital.
ITP Head Inspector Muhammad Najeeb Shah in an exclusive chat with Pakistan Today revealed that according to the new system if any motorist is found violating the traffic law, the traffic wardens will ask the phone number from traffic law offenders and will generate four messages.
These messages will be sent to law violator’s phone number, traffic warden’s phone number, ITP control room, and the National Bank. The violator does not need to physically go to NBP and queue up to pay for his challan. He can simply go to the nearest Telcos outlet and pay his challan. Later, the violator can receive his license from the same warden. After paying off the challan to Telcos, four messages will again be generated to the parties mentioned above.
Now citizens of Islamabad can avoid the hassle and can pay their challans after bank timings and on weekends as well without queuing up in long lines at NBP or zonal traffic police, he added. He said ITP is adopting modern ways of ticketing to facilitate citizens to minimize any hassle for them.
While citizens of Islamabad appreciated the authorities for taking this step, Arslan, a violator, was seen standing in a queue at the traffic police station when Pakistan Today asked him about e-ticketing initiative. He said, “I am an employee at a private firm so I do not have much time; hence, it will prevent the wastage of time of the citizens and should be implemented as soon as possible.”
A traffic warden when asked about this, said, “Life is very much busy in big cities. People do not have much spare time. E-ticketing will greatly help the citizens and save their time.”
Muneer Khan, a social right activist, appreciated this new initiative and said, “The governing bodies are there to help the common citizens, not to bother them, but in government procedures, a common citizen often gets lost and ends up wasting a lot of time. It’s about time governing bodies started implementing new technological ways to help the citizens and move towards more e-systems to facilitate citizens. Indeed it’s a good initiative and citizens of the capital are looking forward to more initiatives like these.”