CARETAKER Chief Minister of Punjab Mohsin Naqvi has issued directions to the relevant authorities that would help realize the cherished objective of good governance. He has ordered an immediate halt to the daily challan quota of traffic wardens and now the number of challans would have nothing to do with the performance of a traffic warden.
He has also decided to set up more driving li-cense issuing centres in five cities of the province that would work in double shifts, mobile teams would visit colleges to conduct driving test of students and a crackdown would be initiated against the beggar mafia.
These and some other decisions that the Chief Minister has announced would surely provide relief to different segments of the society and that too at no additional expenditure to the Government, which is an essence of good governance. Allocation of daily quota of challans to traffic wardens was a tool of exploitation of the people as wardens had to issue challans even to those who committed no wrong. Similarly, people face extreme difficulties in securing driving li-censes and initiation of double shifts in driving centres would help ease the situation.
We also hope that the Chief Minister would also look into reports of palm-greasing in the issuance of driving licenses and other documents like Fard, domicile, police verification and no-objection-certificates. Focus on traffic engineering would also contribute to streamlining of traffic in cities and towns but the issue of encroachment is very complicated as this has much to do with the corruption of local officials and a strict vigilance is needed to achieve desired results. A sustained campaign against professional beggars is long due and one hopes the Chief Minister would see to it that the drive is taken to its logical conclusion as apart from some other evils these are also involved in crimes.
