KARACHI, Oct 15: Commuters of Korangi Crossing have to suffer because of a tussle between transporters and officials of the Korangi Creek Cantonment Board.
The KCCB has established a bus stand at the Crossing by filling up a vacant piece of land along the main Korangi Road. It wants the buses, minibuses, and coaches to pick up passengers at the stand and not on the road. This apparently has been done to prevent traffic snarl-ups.
The transporters would have appreciated it if it were for free. But the KCCB has given out a contract for Rs520,000, allowing the contractor to collect a transit fee from the passing vehicles, Rs5 per bus and coach and Rs3 per van per trip. The transporters say this is an unjustifiable levy.
They refuse to pay the fee. Pressed by the KCCB authorities, using police force, the vehicles have stopped picking up passengers at this point.
The transporters have moved their stop away from the locality. A tent has been pitched along the road at the temporary stop where the agitating men are seen huddled together. At the KCCB stand officials are seated under a tent, both parties guessing each other’s next strategy.
In the meantime, residents of Bhitai Colony, Altaf Town and those changing buses here for Ibrahim Hyderi, PAF base Korangi Creek and Fisheries suffer for no fault of theirs as they have to walk farther in the hot sun.
Terming it a ‘Jugga tax’, representatives of the transporters are adamant that they would not pay even a single penny.
“If we pay them anything, many other stands would spring up all along the route. Transporters already run their vehicles on this route in loss,” said M. A. Quraishi, patron of the Karachi Transport Organizations Federation.
He said his organization had already approached high authorities to impress on them that they would take an extreme step, such as calling a strike or withdrawing their vehicle from the route, if they were forced to pay the levy.
A government official, requesting not to be named, said the land belonged to the Board of Revenue and not to the KCCB. “The job of the KCCB is only to develop and maintain it.”
The KCCB’s move seems a desperate act as it looks for funds to keep itself going. Since the abolition of the Octroi duty by the Nawaz Sharif government, which fetched it more than Rs10 million, the cantonment board can generate hardly enough to pay salaries to its staff.
Its executive officer, Rizwan Ahmed Kazi, says despite repeated appeals the federal government was not releasing the funds supposed to be handed out in place of the Octroi tax.
