Sole public inter-city bus terminal in disarray

Even privately owned stations are in a miserable conditions, which has irked passengers

KARACHI:

Despite a headcount of millions, the country’s largest city, has only one public inter-city bus terminal, which is devoid of basic facilities, leading to privately owned terminals filling the void but they are equally miserable.

According to the Sindh Transport Department, the city’s sole publicly owned bus terminal is located on the M-9 Highway in the Yousuf Goth area near Sohrab Goth. The terminal which is managed by Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) is a harrowing sight, with facilities like clean drinking water, restrooms, and functional waiting areas totally missing.

The state of the terminal stopped perturbing regular users like Gul Khan a while back, who realised that complaints fell on deaf ears. “Drinking water and a suitable area to sit are luxuries at this terminal,” complained Khan whilst sitting on the ground, waiting to board the bus to Quetta.

Another passenger, Ahmad Ali Bakhsh, concurring with Khan, said that he had thought about lodging a formal complaint many times about the state of the terminal but there was no complaint centre on the premises nor was there any official on site.

When contacted about the troubling state of the terminal, Provincial Transport Authority Sindh Secretary, Amit Dev Narwani, said that since the bus stand was under the management of the KMC, he was not at liberty to comment on the lack of facilities. Hence, Narwani was then asked about a city of Karachi’s size only having one terminal, to which he replied: “The unavailability of land has been a hindrance in building a new terminal for the metropolis. We have requested the Deputy Commissioner East to provide 50 acres of land for a new terminal but this request has not been entertained yet.”

The Secretary further informed that the department also intended to establish two new terminals on the National Highway and RCD Highway, if land was made available.

The Express Tribune contacted officials of the KMC multiple times to inquire about the miserable state of the bus terminal but did not hear back from any representative of the corporation.

Private terminals

The city’s sole public inter-city bus terminal, however, is not the only one suffering from neglect; the privately owned terminals are similarly run-down. For instance, Karachi’s largest inter-city bus terminal, the Sorab Goth Bus Stop, has no separate waiting area for families or any dedicated restrooms for women. Moreover, the absence of clean drinking water means that customers are forced to purchase water from hawkers, who charge a pretty penny.

Muhammad Ali, a passenger at the terminal, whilst talking to The Express Tribune about the state of the terminal, remarked that this was perhaps the most unhygienic and unclean bus stop he had been to. When asked about the run-down state of the city’s private bus terminals, the Secretary of the Provincial Transport Authority, informed that most of these bus stations were illegal. “We have taken action against them multiple times but it has not proved effective because the traffic police does not cooperate,” he said.

In this regard, the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Traffic Police Karachi, Ahmed Nawaz Cheema, laid the blame squarely on the local police and the transport authority. “We remove the illegal terminals and the buses routinely but they keep coming back. All the concerned departments need to work together to curb the illegal bus stops,” said Cheema while talking to The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 24^th, 2023.