LAHORE:Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi has constituted a provincial task force for road safety.
He chaired a meeting on Saturday in which steps being taken for the road safety came under review. The CM said the task force would prepare a comprehensive plan of action for prevention of traffic accidents and prompt steps would be taken in the light of recommendations, to be put forth by the task force. Necessary legislation would also be done in this regard and Provincial Minister Raja Basharat would be the head of the task force. Chief secretary, inspector general of police, additional chief Secretary(Home), traffic officials and other officers will be members of the Task Force.
The chief minister accorded an approval to introduce electric mini carts in place of motorcycle rickshaws. The meeting decided in principle to promote environment friendly electric bikes to reduce pollution in the province. He maintained that electric bikes and electric cars would be encouraged in the province adding that motorcycle rickshaws would be changed into golf cart vehicles in a phased manner.
He revealed that a readable token sticker would be pasted on the vehicles after conducting their inspection and in case of the absence of readable inspection token, the vehicle would immediately be put off the road. The CM ordered to pay special attention to the repair of roads and of government vehicles in order to reduce traffic accidents, adding that the traffic police should adopt zero tolerance policy on the matters of out-of-order vehicles headlights and indicators. He asserted that a strict legal action should be taken against the underage drivers.
DG Rescue 1122 Service Dr Rizwan Naseer gave a briefing to the meeting that 10 persons die and many get injured in the traffic accidents on daily basis, adding that after every 2 minutes, a traffic accident takes place somewhere in Punjab.
Chief Secretary Abdullah Sumbal, Principal Secretary to CM Muhammad Khan Bhatti, Inspector General of Police Faisal Shahkar, ACS (Home), Secretary Transport, senior officials of Traffic Police and the concerned officers attended the meeting.