Obligating fitness certificate

A.M. Khan  

A travel in public transport from Kluprisht van stand of district lower to upper Chitral’s headquarter provides for what is needed to know about the troubles of travelling public and fitness of the motor vehicles.

Let it be clear that there are no public or private entities providing services to the public both in lower and upper Chitral for inter-district travels. Rather the vehicle owners provide public transport facility. For the public still there are passé vans locally known as ‘flying coach’ taking hundreds of passengers every day from lower to upper Chitral and vice-versa. These vans are shabby and mechanically unfit for mobility.

The assessment of a driver about the vans operating between lower and upper Chitral appears correct. He has thirty years of driving experience, and now he takes passengers from Chitral to Peshawar in his 2d motor car. According to him, there are only two vehicles (vans) fit for carrying passengers and the rest are pathetic.

Yesterday it was raining, I travelled back home from Booni in a van which had just arrived from lower Chitral. On its way it broke down. After inquiry, the driver told about the persisting unfitness. After all,there were 12 passengers, including three women, of village Kuragh, Charun and Charunowir who came out on the muddy road at Junalikoch. Of them few commuted by foot, and the rest might have waited there for hours.

These mechanically unfit vans take hundreds of precious lives every day from and to both lower and upper Chitral. They don’t meet, even for a layman, the minimum threshold of vehicular fitness. These vans are cumbersome to travel, let alone the condition of the road between the headquarters of both districts. The vehicles which stand ‘in line’ require to be obligated for fitness certificate. As a Khowar saying goes, these vehicles ‘to be roped together into the river’.

Under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Motor Vehicles Rules, 1969, there is a procedure (though laid down broadly) for the issuance of the certificate of fitness and renewal thereof. Transport and Mass Transit Department (TMTD) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provides transport services and ‘obligated to ensure provision of safety arrangements… safe, reliable, comfortable and affordable means of transportation to travelling public in the province’.

Among other services this department is committed to provide vehicle fitness verification. As per rules and subsequent devolution, there are to be regional (district) transport authorities to deal with all of the above delegated mandates. And there must be the Motor Vehicles Examiner (MVA) for the provision of the certificate of fitness for the means of transportation to the travelling public.

This is indeed easier said than done, of either issuance of the certificate of fitness or cancelling it, to all trailers in a province or a region. But at the district level, it’s easier to ensure and obligate certificate of fitness to a dozen of the transporters or owners of the motor vehicles (read: vans) named ‘flying coach’ which provide transportation to the public from Kluprisht van stand to Booni.