Transporters continue to fleece passengers

People scramble for seats at bus terminals, railway station

RAWALPINDI: Transporters continued to fleece travellers unabatedly at bus terminals in the garrison city on Saturday with officials doing little to curb the rampant profiteering.

As the last weekend, before Eidul Fitr started, bus terminals at Pirwadhai, Faizabad, Tarnol, near Soan River and the railway station were bustling with passengers grappling for a seat, hoping to get home before Eid.

A good number of people residing in twin cities leave to visit their native areas in Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and to other parts of the country.

However, people and their families wait until the last few days of Ramazan before leaving the garrison city. With a weekend preceding Eid, it made it easier for people to plan an early departure to spend some extra time with their loved ones.



A visit to different bus terminals on Saturday showed that travellers were falling over one another to get tickets and seats. On the other hand, transporters fleeced desperate passengers almost at will.

“I come from Kohat. The buses and coaches for Kohat leave from the Pirwadahi Bus Terminal,” said Iqbal Khattak who works at a private company in Rawalpindi. “I wanted to leave on Saturday but I am finding it harder to get a seat than during normal days,” the frustrated passenger added, noting with a sigh of relief that at least his family had already returned to Kohat.

He said that when he and other passengers gathered at the bus terminal, transporters complained that buses were in short supply owing to overwhelming rush on the eve of Eid.

Tickets in ‘black’

With demand far exceeding supply, some transporters are exploiting the occasion to make extra money.

Khattak said that while he was waiting for a bus, a man approached him and other waiting passengers, offering to arrange a ‘special coach’ for them, should they be willing to pay a higher-than-normal fare.

The distraught passenger said that after waiting under the hot midday sun for half an hour during fast, he and others relented and agreed to pay the advertised fare of Rs500 for a seat, as opposed to Rs300 which are normally charged for a ticket to Kohat.



Similar scenarios were shared by others waiting at the bus terminal.

Muhammad Shafique, a government employee in Islamabad, said that he wanted to travel to the Hazara division, but had been forced to wait for over two hours.

He added that the long wait in the sizzling heat forced travellers to bow to the demands of higher fares from transporters.

Shafique further complained about the lack of proper waiting areas at the big bus terminus, adding that the wait with children became even more difficult.

Feroz Khan, a conductor on a bus plying between Rawalpindi and Peshawar, explained that they charged higher fares because transporters had to hire additional buses and coaches to tackle the rush on Eid.

“The transporters have to ask for coaches from less frequented routes to take passengers to major cities. The owners of the coaches always ask for an extra fare,” he explained.

The conductor opined that it was better to pay more now than to wait for hours on end for a bus.

Blind eye

Some passengers, however, complained that officials had turned a blind eye to the profiteering. Shehzad, a passenger, said that when he visited the Faizabad terminus, passengers were being openly fleeced.

“When I told the ITP official present there [at Faizabad terminus], he told me to call the helpline and then action will be taken,” Shehzad complained, adding that shortly after the ITP official went off to scold a man who was smoking in an under-construction building.

The situation was quite similar at the Soan Bus Terminal where most of buses and coaches travel to different parts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Kahuta, Jhelum, Chakwal, Gujrat and other major towns on located along GT Road.

The scenes were, however, less messy at Tarnol where terminals for well-known bus services were located. There, the passengers had the facility to get reservations ahead of time while buses left on time.

As far the Rawalpindi Railway Station is concerned, the authorities reportedly have added two to three additional coaches with trains to accommodate extra passengers on the Eid.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2017.