In order to keep 75 CNG buses running, the cash-strapped City District Government Karachi (CDGK) has taken private operators on board.
The transport and communication department was forced to outsource the project when it ran out of money to run it.
The project started with an aim to get around 500 CNG buses on the roads.
“The paucity of funds, especially after the recent floods and the influx of the internally displaced persons, was the main reason why the provincial government reduced funds for this project,” said a member of the CNG pilot project.
The CDGK started the project with an initial subsidy of Rs7.5 million in a fiscal year but financial retrenchments threw a spanner in the works, he said. He explained that private operators were taken on board because, “it was better to keep these buses on the roads than to keep them parked”.
The project needed Rs7.5 million to run, which the government doesn’t have. By outsourcing it, the CDGK earns at the most Rs3 million. The private operators are not required to tell the CDGK how much they earn on top of this.
If the CDGK fares were lower, these buses now charge the same as the going public transport rate, approximately Rs15. Also, there is another difference — while the buses did not have a conductor and only 50 people would be seated, now they can be crammed with as many people as the bus conductor and driver want. They do not necessarily stop at the proper stops either.
A few months ago, City Administrator Lala Fazlur Rehman had announced that he would arrange for the funds but the transport department has yet to receive the good news.
Recently, the transport and communication department revoked its outsourcing contracts to two major operators - CNG-3 and CNG-4 - due to a breach in their contracts. The department has invited fresh bids, after which services on the Orangi-Clifton-Saddar and Orangi-Khokrapar routes are likely to be revived. Meanwhile, the commuters believed that it is the city government that does not want to run these buses. The CDGK sidelined the air-conditioned, green buses introduced by the former city nazim Niamatullah Khan and it is the CDGK again, which failed to manage the dedicated CNG bus service introduced by the former city nazim Mustafa Kamal.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 8th, 2011.
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