Scores of van drivers staged a protest demonstration against the district administration and traffic police on Tuesday for delay in the testing of GNG cylinders installed in their vehicles.
They said the delay was costing them their daily income, since the cylinders had been removed from their vehicles and they were plying their vehicles on petrol.
The Sargodha Road remained blocked for several hours due to the protest.
Noor Din, one of the protesting van drivers, said that the motor vehicle examiner had removed the CNG cylinder from his vehicle three days ago and had sent it for checking. He said he had been told he could get the cylinder back in 24 hours. When he went to collect it the next day, he said, he was told to return the next day. The next day it was the same story, he added.
Some of the protesters questioned the examiners for not setting a minimum time frame for cylinders to be returned. Some of them said they had been waiting for over a week.
Khalid Rafiq, one of the protesters, said that some of the drivers had approached the district government offices as well as the traffic officers asking for their gas cylinders to be returned and to be allowed to use them until fitness reports were available. He said no one from these offices had responded.
The protesters dispersed when a police team visited the scene and assured them that their cylinders would be returned in 24-hours.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Inspector Ghulam Fareed, a traffic police spokesman, said that the cylinder had been removed as part of a campaign against substandard CNG cylinders installed in public transport. He said these cylinders could not be returned until fitness certificates were obtained.
“We cannot put people’s life in danger just because the drivers are losing some of their income,” he said. He said every driver who had visited his office had been explained the gravity of the matter.
Inspector Fareed said that hundreds of gas cylinders were being sent to the laboratory for tests every day. He said the large influx was causing the delay.
He said the laboratory staff had been asked to speed up the checking process.
He hoped that cylinders removed three days ago could be returned on Friday (today).
Published in The Express Tribune, June 7th, 2013.