Daily Times

KARACHI: A boy watches gazes at his watch time and again standing in a huge rush as people holding large bags on their shoulders are moving up and down. Taxi drivers are asking passengers,”G sir kahan jana hai”? (Yes sir, where have you to go?), Commuters bargain with transporters for the settlement of the fair. Conductor are chanting chants” Peshawar, Lahore, Islamabad, Rahimyar Khan, Sukkur, Shikarpur, Larkana, Dadu”. It seems frenzy everywhere.

There is also a shortage of passengers from the other side since we have come back empty hence we are compelled to over charge from people as we have to run our business and home.” We also have children and we also want to celebrate Eid.”, Juman Ali complained, police only crackdowns on us rather inquiring about ground realities and compulsions”.

Another man who was chanting” Shikarpur,Larakana,Mehar,Dadu”,when he was asked for the fair of Mehar he replied that we charge same fair of all the routes.

They are charging us a very-high amount of money; they have doubled it. Usually we pay 600 for Larkana now the transporters are asking for 1000-1200″, Ali one of the commuter lamented while standing at the bust stand at Taj Complex area of Saddar.

Mehboob Ali Bhutto, a passenger waiting at the bus stand near Taj Complex Saddar, complained that transporters have started charging double or even more at all the bus-stands which are full of people who are leaving to enjoy the Eid holidays with their kith and kin at their hometowns. “Fleecing people is the routine practice of transporters, especially on Eid”.

People must go earlier to avoid being over-charged and the ticket problem”, said one of office bearers at Taj complex bus-stand adding that the fair would even rise higher when Eid will further reach closer.

“Traffic police has failed to implement the normal fair-structure in spite of many complaints”, said another man adding that the commuters who protest against over-charging are disgraced by the conductors.

People from all walks of life have appealed to the concerned authorities to take notice of this “unjust fair charging” and take stern action against those transporters who fleece passengers.

A spokesman of the traffic police said that action is being taken against the transporters involved in over-charging.

“As many as 132 vehicles of inter-city were monitored / checked during the 4 day campaign launched by provincial transport authority.

It would continue till the sighting of the moon of Eid ul Fitar. According to details

“At least Rs.375000/ the over-charged amount was refunded to the commuters of inter-city bus transport while more than Rs.200000/ was challaned as fine of over exorbitant fares of inter-city bus transport at various spots throughout the Karachi”, he said.

In this regard Secretary Provincial Transport Authority (PTA) Manzoor Kanrani along with Secretary RTA, Nazar Shahani and DSPs Saddar Munir Baloch and Saeed Arain visited the Cant Station inter-city bus depot, where they enquired from the general commuters of the intercity bus transport and to those of outside of the city-routed from Karachi to Lahore, Sargodha, Sadiqabad, Faisalabad, Multan and other parts of Sindh. “The vigorous campaign would continue till the sighting of the moon of Eid ul Fitar and Motorway Police will encounter the complains and provide spot relief to the commuters during the Holy month of Ramzan”, the spoke man said.

Though the ITP said it had launched a drive against transporters over-charging the public, the passengers were mostly left at the transporters’ mercy since no officials were present on the ground.

Another major issue in regulating fares is that there is no publicly-available official list of fares for various destinations, as a result of which private contractors and transporters set the rates themselves.

Published in Daily Times, June 25th, 2017.