Road safety: Inter-city buses to remove CNG kits in three months

Deadly accidents involving passenger buses have claimed 72 lives this year.

KARACHI: All transporters who ply passenger buses between cities in Sindh must remove their CNG kits within three months, said a Sindh transport department notification.

The three-month deadline was announced on May 8 following two deadly accidents on Sindh's highway this year that claimed the lives of as many as 72 people. Taxi cabs and three-wheeler auto rickshaws have been exempted.

According to the notification issued by the transport department, the decision to ban the use of CNGs in all inter-city public vehicles was made following the Sindh High Court (SHC) decision on a constitutional petition and exercising the powers conferred under section 45 read with section 78 of the Pakistan Motor Vehicle Ordinance, 1965.

"Had we not imposed the ban, we would have been called under contempt of court," transport minister Mumtaz Jakhrani told The Express Tribune.

Legal loophole

While the government used the constitutional petition (D-3979) as the basis to ban CNG kits, a transport department official claimed, on the condition of anonymity, that the petition in question was actually dismissed by the SHC due to non-prosecution on May 20.

The notification was issued on May 8 when the petition was still pending before the high court, he added. The petitioner in question, United Human Rights Commission of Pakistan's Rana Faizul Hasan, also confirmed to The Express Tribune that their petition was dismissed. "There is a decision by the SHC to remove substandard CNG cylinders from buses," he said, but expressed his ignorance about any court decision regarding a complete ban on CNG kits in inter-city buses.

The transport department's focal person, Yar Muhammad Mirjat, explained that they had written to the court eight times before the dismissal of the petition that the department will ban the use of CNG kits in inter-city buses. "This means we have made an agreement with the court," he said.

The Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan's senior research engineer, Sahib Din Khowaja, believed the short supply of CNG is another major factor influencing the decision to ban CNG.

Disgruntled bus owners

Meanwhile, the transporters are unhappy with the decision and are planning to go to the Supreme Court against it, said Karachi Bus Owner Association's senior vice-president, Khalid Khan. "We spent billions of rupees to convert our buses from petrol or diesel to CNG because the government asked us to do so back in 2008," he said, explaining how they were told that CNGs will reduce pollution.

Research engineer Khowaja confirmed that, in 2008, the transport department itself had asked the transporters to convert their vehicles to CNG. "Till 1998, there were only 350 vehicles on CNG," he shared. "After 2008, we don't exactly know the number of cars converted."

But the transporters have their profits to consider. "Where will we dump all these CNG cylinders and kits?" Khalid asked, wondering if the government will buy these back from them. But Jakhrani refused. "It is not the government's responsibility," said the minister.

The other option Khalid is willing to consider is increasing the fares by 25 per cent to accommodate the cost of the conversion. The Sindh Bus Owner Association president Meer Afzal Khan pointed out that it would take them at least one year to convert their vehicles to diesel. "It took us around Rs0.8 million to convert a single bus to CNG and we have around 200,000 buses in Sindh."

They charge 71 paisas per kilometre in Sindh while Punjab charges Rs1.10 for the same distance. "Do our vehicles run on water?" he asked.

Jakhrani refused to comply and insisted the fares will stay at the rates fixed by the government. If the transporters need more time to switch from CNG, the government can allow that but the notification will not be withdrawn, he added.

Execution hurdles: Difficulties in implementing ban

With the transport department adamant to ban CNGs in three months, the Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan’s senior research engineer, Sahib Din Khowaja, raised some crucial questions for the future. Who will identify which bus in travelling within the city and which is travelling between cities? Who will monitor the buses?

The transport minister does not have exact plans yet. “After three months, our team will visit their bus stands with expert mechanics,” he said.

Traffic DIG Amir Ahmed Shaikh admitted that their 3,100 traffic police personnel for the city may not be enough to monitor all the buses. “We have written to the Motorway Police and we are planning to hold meetings with them as well as the transport department on how to tackle this after three months,” he said.

Khowaja suggested that it may be better to ban just the illegally installed CNG kits. Not even one per cent of all commercial vehicles have installed their CNG kits legally, he said. “These transporters install sub-standard oxygen cylinders in their vehicles, which are no less than a moving bomb.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 3^rd, 2015.