Local public transporters on Sunday announced a wheel-jam strike for tomorrow (December 8) in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, rejecting the local administration\u2019s request to delay the protest against the new traffic ordinance, which has raised fines for heavy vehicles.<\/p>\n
The strike was announced on the call of the Punjab Public Transport Association. Before the announcement, representatives of the association, along with the Goods Transporters Association, met City Traffic Police officer Farhan Aslam and Regional Transport Authority Secretary Asad Shirazi. The administration urged transporters not to observe a wheel-jam strike in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.<\/p>\n
However, local transporters refused to withdraw their decision, insisting they would go ahead with the strike to pressure the provincial government into repealing the ordinance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tried to convince the transporters not to go for a wheel-jam strike, but they demanded to abolish the new amendments, and it was beyond our authority to do anything about it,\u201d Shirazi said.<\/p>\n
He added that the Punjab government had been informed of the demands of the transporters, and it would hold negotiations with the United Transport Association in Lahore.<\/p>\n
Mutahida Transport Federation of Twin Cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad Chairman Raja Muhammad Riaz told Dawn that \u201ctransporters were facing problems due to heavy fines, and it was difficult to manage their household budgets.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHeavy fines from Rs5,000 to Rs20,000 had become routine, and it destroyed their business,\u201d Riaz said, adding that the government was trying to recover its financial burdens from transporters, who were already struggling with fuel and spare parts.<\/p>\n
He demanded an immediate reduction in fines and an end to policies that \u201cdestroyed the sector.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the meeting, he said that the traffic police agreed not to impose fines on vehicles having a fitness certificate.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the President of the Goods Transport Association, Shakeel Qureshi, said that freight vehicles and goods transporters in Rawalpindi would support the wheel-jam strike on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will join them in the decision of the Pakistan United Transporters Committee to strike on December 8,\u201d he said, adding that the Rawalpindi transporters will keep their bases completely closed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe strongly condemn the traffic laws passed by the Punjab Assembly and the rate of fines,\u201d he said. \u201cAmendments to the customs laws that will be made are tantamount to economic murder of transporters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Local public transporters on Sunday announced a wheel-jam strike for tomorrow (December 8) in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, rejecting the local administration\u2019s request to delay the protest against the new traffic ordinance, which has raised fines for heavy vehicles. The strike was announced on the call of the Punjab Public Transport Association. Before the announcement, representatives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13948,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13946\/revisions\/13948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}