Passengers travelling to their home towns to spend Eid with their families despite increase in transport fares. PHOTOS: AYSHA SALEEM/EXPRESS
With a small bag hanging on his shoulders, he moves towards the ticket counter and then stops, intermittently. He fishes out a Rs500 note from his pocket and urges the ticket collector of the City Van Hiace to allow him to travel. However, the collector refuses to take the money.
He asks Ali to pay Rs1,000 instead to board the passenger van.
"In normal days the ticket to Sukkur costs Rs400," Ali told The Express Tribune. "It's not that I don't have Rs1,000 with me, I just cannot afford to spend so much amount on travelling," he explained, adding that there would be other expenses on Eid at his home, for which he was saving money. "For labourers like me Rs1,000 is a big amount," he added.
On Eid, people want to spend time with their families especially those who have come from different parts of the country to work in Karachi. However, without an overarching authority monitoring their activities transporters take full advantage and increase fares adding to the woes of passengers.
City van ticket collector Munir Ahmed argued that the buses are packed with passengers heading out from Karachi but are empty on the return journey. "We have to cover up that cost too," he said, and demanded the Sindh government to subsidise bus fares in Ramazan at least.
Holding a ticket and ready to board the Shalimar Coach to celebrate Eid with his mother in his hometown of Nawabshah, young Pakistan Army official Muhammad Owais lamented that "each bus is charging Rs200 to Rs500 extra." He added that he usually travels to Nawabshah in Rs200 and this time he had to pay Rs500.
On the other hand, the ticket collector of the Shalimar Coach said it was the month of earning for them. "Go and check the whole area, every single bus operator is charging more than the usual," he claimed.
Railway fares
A similar situation was also observed at Karachi, Cantt Station, where Muhammad Shahid was sitting along with his 14 brothers to travel to Lodhran, Punjab. "Our parents are eagerly waiting for us to reach there," he said, adding they are yet to get a train ticket.
The reservation of the train had finished and now only the tickets costing Rs1,600 were being sold. This means that he or his brothers won't get a seat and will have to stand all the way, he added.
According to Pakistan Railways division officer Muhammad Nasir, they had already operated special Eid trains for which fares were not more than Rs1,500. For people who do not have any reservations, they will have to buy open tickets which are usually cheaper, he added.
Govt (in)action
Last year, then Karachi commissioner Shoaib Siddiqui had set up a complaint centre at Sohrab Goth, comprising staff from the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) and the traffic police to control the issue of increased fares during Eid. Apart from the complaint centre, citizens were also able to register their complaints at the commissioner's complaint room.
However, this time no complaint centre was established at any bus terminal and the transport fares reached an all-time high.
Official sources revealed that incumbent commissioner Ejaz Ahmad Khan did not even hold a meeting with transport officials regarding bus fares in light of the Eid rush.
Responding to this, Khan told The Express Tribune that Sindh's transport department is monitoring bus fares daily. On Saturday, around Rs0.2 million were returned to the passengers who were overcharged, he claimed adding that several intercity transporters were also fined for overcharging passengers.
Meanwhile, RTA secretary Manshad Ali Shahani said their teams were already deployed at the Toll Plaza monitoring the intercity transport fares.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 4th, 2016.
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