Karachi's new e-traffic challan system launched with much fanfare as if now we have suddenly entered the 'smart city' of future. On the surface, it sounds like the modern kind of thing - cameras, QR codes, online payments. No more "boss, chalta karo" conversation at the checkpoint. For once, the state appears to be behaving like the state.
But scratch the surface and the glistening digital layer begins to peel. Because while the system may be digital, the city it's trying to regulate is still living in the same old purana Karachi - broken roads, missing signboards, half-dead traffic signals, and a juggaar- rather than engineering-focused driving culture.
The biggest flaw is a simple one, you cannot enforce the text book traffic rules in a city which doesn't follow the text book.
A camera could intercept a biker heading into another lane. Fair enough. But the camera doesn't see that the lane literally fades away like mehndi on the 2nd day. A speeding ticket amounts to nothing until you realize that the speed limit sign was blocked by an anniversary poster of the political party in 2019. The camera takes the action, but not the compulsion behind that action.
Supporters of e-challans label the system as "fair." Machines are not discriminatory, they say. Theek hai, machines may not discriminate - but the system it is operating in surely does.
The effect of single Rs. 10,000 challan strikes you differently depending upon who you are. For someone driving around in a Corolla on Shahrah-e-Faisal, it's pocket change that is annoying. For a rider bhai delivering food at midnight it's half a day's earning. In Karachi, the equality of punishment doesn't mean the equality of impact.
Then there's the sloppy, distinctly Pakistani issue of documentation. The government assumes that challenges will reach registered addresses. Mashwara yeh hai someone needs to tell them Karachi isn't built that neatly. Half of the city is living on rented houses with landlords that have not updated their car papers since Musharraf's era. Postal delivery is hit and miss. Many a motorcyclists are not even aware of the address printed on their registration books - agar woh kitabon ki form mein mojood hain, abhi bhi.
So the system fines people who may not even be aware of their having been fined. And when they find out - usually standing in an excise office counter - there is no mercy, no warning, no first offense grace.
In this environment, digital punishment in the absence of infrastructural reform has a less disciplinary feel, and more of an additional tax.But here's the thing that we shouldn't ignore, e-challans can work. They can truly change the way the Karachi drives - if they are accompanied by steps that make it possible to rule. Fresh road markings. Functional signals. Proper signage. A humane system of dispute resolution in which a citizen would be able to say, "bhai, yeh wala challan ghalat hai" and be heard.
Most importantly, the government needs to ensure that it is proved that this system is not merely another trick to collect revenue. Karachiites will obey rules if they feel the rules are there for their safety, not to fill up treasury holes.
E-challans may bring Karachi to a more disciplined era. But discipline is a two way street. The state cannot demand behaviour which it refuses to enable. Till the city's roads get repaired, signboards get fixed and infrastructure gets respected, e-challan will be like a bandaid to a wound which needs a stitch. |