Obsolete van pose life risk for commuters

Residents of Multan and adjacent areas have no safer alternatives

MULTAN: Unfit passenger vans plying on the city roads and suburban areas pose a significant life risk for the commuters due to their bad condition. Most of the passenger vans’ models were even older than the year 1990 while only a few of them were above the year 2000. The typical seating capacity is around 14 to 15 passengers but the drivers and helpers stuff more than 23 passengers. The City Traffic Police, Environment Department, District Regional Transport Authority and other concerned departments seem oblivious to the concerns of the commuters.

The passenger vans using route from Multan to Kehrorpaka, Multan to Thatha Sadiqabad, Multan to Shujabad, Multan to Raja Raam and Multan to Dunyapur via Basti Malook can be seen parked on roads owing to various technical faults.

It was observed that the residents of the adjacent areas of Multan have no alternative transport facility. A local passenger van charges Rs80 from each passenger from Dunyapur to Multan while the seven-seater APV charges Rs220 per person for the same route.

Moreover, sub-standard liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders were also installed in these vans posing a major risk to the lives of those onboard.

Besides these issues, over-speeding and racing have also led to various road accidents in which many people lost their lives whereas some were disabled for life.

Though several road accidents occurred due to these issues no proper mechanism has been set up to control such blatant violations on the city roads.

A driver of a passenger van, Akbar Shah, said that every van has to reach Multan from Kehrorpaka, which is about 85 kilometers away from Multan, in 80 minutes, so they have to drive the vehicles at a speed above 80 kilometers per hour.

A passenger, Muhammad Ilyas, said that traveling with family in these vehicles was not possible because most of the male passengers were accommodated on female seats due to minimum seating capacity.

He said that illiterate staffers of the vans, untrained drivers that hold no driving license and improper monitoring by the concerned departments were the main cause behind this public trouble.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2020.