KARACHI, Nov 9: People have demanded a reduction in fares of coaches to the level of mini-buses as these allegedly do not follow their agreement with the government to ply seat-by-seat or provide quality transport service against the un-matching high fares, charging Rs9 for the very next stop.

The owners of coaches have been revising fares upwards time and again on the grounds that they have to bear more financial burden in case of a rise in petroleum prices as they ply their vehicles seat-by-seat. However, the ground realities are entirely different.

The so-called “flying” coaches, like ordinary mini-buses and buses, overload passengers to the extent that even their roof- tops are not spared. Causing increasing miseries to the commuters, the coaches are also in the practice of breaking off their journey in mid-route and picking up new passengers for the remaining route to double their earnings.

It is to be mentioned here that on Oct 27, this year, the Karachi traffic police had launched a drive against flying coaches to make these bound to ply seat-by-seat and the commuters heaved a sigh of relief for about a week. Afterwards, the transporters reversed to their old status of overloading along with various other traffic violations.

The owners of coaches plying on various city routes have been advocating that it is the commuters who rush into coaches, making these overload due to shortage of public transport. But this contention carries little weight as everybody is well aware of the practice adopted by transporters as well as their attitude towards passengers.

A group of commuters, on Friday, also demanded that mini-buses and buses be granted route permits on certain city routes where the flying coaches had their monarchy and the commuters had no other option but to pay unbearably high coach fares even for travelling small distances.—APP