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Number of vehicles without fitness certificates rising

By Asad Hashim 

This is despite the rising number of commercial vehicles plying Karachi’s roads. — File

KARACHI: While the number of commercial vehicles plying the roads of Karachi has risen, the number of fitness certificates being issued to such vehicles by the Saeedabad Motor Vehicle Inspection branch has actually decreased over the years.
Officials associated with the inspection branch told Dawn that ‘incentives are not attractive enough’ — and punishments not strong enough — for vehicle owners to bring their buses, trucks, rickshaws and water tankers in for proper inspections.
Speaking to Dawn on condition of anonymity, several officials estimated that between 85 and 90 per cent of commercial vehicles on the roads either did not have fitness certificates, or obtained them ‘through fraudulent means’.
‘We should get some 100 to 150 water tankers here every six months,’ said an inspector, ‘but we do not. The number of vehicles in the city has gone up, but the number of certificates we issue has gone down.’
Inspectors added that since the fine for driving a vehicle without a valid fitness certificate is only Rs100, many drivers do not consider it a significant enough disincentive to have their vehicles properly inspected.
The MVI is responsible, among other things, for issuing vehicle fitness certificates to all commercial vehicles every six months, ensuring that they are not only mechanically fit, but also that they do not emit excessive hazardous fumes from their exhausts.
When Dawn recently visited the city’s MVI branch in Saeedabad, it became clear that even though few vehicle owners obey the rules, the inspectors are woefully under-resourced to handle the responsibilities given to them. For example, inspectors do not have any equipment to check smoke levels from vehicles being tested. All of the testing is therefore done visually.
‘We can only look at the smoke, as we do not have any smoke analysers,’ said an official, speaking on condition of anonymity. ‘We also look at the general condition of the bus, truck or tanker, we test the brakes and we check how much smoke is emitted when the accelerator is pushed down. We will also check the lights, and look at the tyres in order to gauge the condition of the axle.’
Regarding the lack of smoke analysers, the official asserted that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had ‘yet to decide on a standard’, and therefore smoke analysers could not be purchased, as ‘they are calibrated to specific standards’.
The official said, however, that the ‘visual inspection is enough. In either case, vehicles in poor condition hardly ever come here, because the owners know they will not pass.’
Allegations of corruption
Officials said they inspected, on average, between 250 and 300 vehicles every day at the Saeedabad MVI inspection ground. They said that vehicle owners who thought their vehicles would be rejected ‘often take their buses, trucks or taxis to another MVI branch, one which does not even have an inspection ground, and which is known to grant certificates easily’.
Other officials at the MVI branch agreed with this assertion, saying that a fitness certificate at a particular MVI branch in Balochistan ‘costs only Rs25-50, and you can just go there and pick it up. In fact, they even have a home delivery service!’
The officials said this was the main reason why polluting vehicles were still plying the roads of Karachi without valid fitness certificates, as they were ‘never actually inspected’.
Sources disclosed that there was no database of offenders who had their fitness certificates confiscated by traffic authorities on the roads, and the only way the Saeedabad MVI branch came to know of fitness certificates being suspended in this way was if the offending driver brought his vehicle to the MVI branch himself.
When asked why, given the reasons they have outlined, any vehicle owners bother to come to the Saeedabad MVI branch at all, inspectors said that those who came were mainly ‘people who are more aware or educated. Also, we get many company cars, owned by multinational companies which are unlikely to want to break the law in this way.’
Certain vehicles banned from roads
Perhaps anxious that the Saeedabad MVI branch was being portrayed as a redundant facility, officials there also spoke about how they had ‘banned the use of certain vehicles in the city, including the Qingqi (a Chinese brand) motorcycle-based rickshaw’.
‘We failed it based on the noise and emissions, and it was also unsafe,’ said an official, adding that the MVI branch inspectors ‘resisted all pressure to reverse the decision’. They also pointed out that another type of rickshaw, the ‘feeder rickshaw’, which runs on a belt system, was also banned.
Inspectors asserted that before any new model of commercial vehicle plies the roads of Karachi, it must be passed by the Saeedabad MVI branch.
When asked how the Qingqi motorcyle-rickshaws were still plying the roads of Karachi when they had been failed by the MVI branch, the inspectors asserted that the vehicles were ‘not seen on any main roads’, but conceded that they were still used in many areas.
DIG blames irregularities, lack of resources
When Dawn spoke to DIG (Traffic) Khurram Gulzar regarding the issue, he outlined the same problems that MVI inspectors did, namely that many fitness certificates were allegedly being issued by out-of-province MVI branches fraudulently, and that the MVI branch in Saeedabad had a shortage of resources.
He said that when it came to fake fitness certificates, the police faced the same problem as they did with verifying driving licences.
‘You cannot stop commercial vehicles from getting fitness certificates from anywhere in Pakistan, just as drivers can get licences from anywhere.’ He pointed out that it was difficult to verify if these out-of-province fitness certificates were genuine because of the lack of any sort of centralised database, either on the provincial or national level, for the certificates.
Regarding the lack of proper equipment, the DIG asserted that his branch has ‘written to the government and to the police headquarters to obtain more equipment to actually check the vehicles [beyond physical inspections]’. In particular, he said that smoke analysers were on the list of equipment requested.
The DIG also added that a major reason for the high levels of smoke coming from public transportation vehicles was that they use ‘low grade or polluted diesel as fuel’.
‘The low grade diesel creates a lot of smoke, and the standard of the lubricant these drivers and owners use is not very good, so that adds to the problem as well.’
Finally, he offered this defence: ‘We simply cannot take all of the buses off the roads even if they are emitting high levels of smoke, because then people won’t be able to get to work. There are 6,000 minibuses, 6,000 coaches and 1,800 buses in this city . . . if we take them all off the roads, then how will people get around in the city?’
Just eight inspectors for entire city
There are currently eight motor vehicle inspectors posted at the Saeedabad MVI branch, and after checking vehicles which arrive at the facility in the mornings, in the afternoons they are deputed along different roads to check public transportation and commercial vehicles for emitting an excessive amount of smoke. Only one inspector is on duty at any given time, and the others are rotated weekly.
According to data from the traffic police, 977 vehicles had their fitness certificates suspended for excessive smoke emission or absence of a silencer between March and April 2009.The same data shows that 3,484 fitness certificates were rejected by the MVI branch in the same two month period, an average of over 55 rejections per day.