KARACHI, Dec 7: Thousands of commuters living around Korangi Crossing suffered immensely when the tussle between transporters and officials of the cantonment board took a nastier turn on Friday. Till late afternoon, not a single bus, minibus or coach passed through the crossing.

The scores of vehicles usually running from Landhi-Korangi to different parts of the city detoured at Nasir Colony, instead of touching Korangi Crossing, and emerged at Hino Chowrangi after travelling through the Korangi Industrial Area.

The prospective passengers of these vehicles had to walk several kilometres down to Defence, or up to Nasir Colony, to catch vehicles for Saddar, Tower, Liaquatabad, Nazimabad, etc.

Taking advantage of the situation, cab and pickup operators took passengers on fixed rates, mainly for Saddar. But their capacity did not match the quantum of commuters or their paying capability.

Residents of the area were naturally exasperated over the unnecessary hassle, the waste of time and money they suffered.

The Korangi Creek Cantonment Board had established a bus stand at the Crossing by filling up a vacant piece of land along the main Korangi Road. It wanted the buses, minibuses, and coaches to pick up passengers at the stand and not on the road. This, they claimed, had been done to prevent traffic snarl-ups.

The KCCB had 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.

Saying that this was an unjustifiable levy, the transporters refused to pay the fee. Pressed by the KCCB authorities, using police force, the vehicles stopped picking up passengers at this point. The transporters moved their stop away from the locality.

The stand-off continued for a few days before the KCCB lost all hopes of roping in the transporters and abandoned the scheme.

With the recent reinstatement of the KCCB councillor and vice president, Zafar Iqbal, the board took a fresh initiative on Thursday, when he was seen supervising the enforcement of the cantonment plan. A few of the buses passed the road on Thursday and picked up passengers at the stand. Zafar said he had given a three-day moratorium to the transporters to operate free.

“There is no question of the fee being legal or illegal. It’s just Rs5 a trip and if the bus operators pay it, it will be spent on our poor locality,” Mr Iqbal said.

But on Friday, the chairman of the All-Pakistan Bus-Owners Federation, M. Ateeq Qureshi, warned that if the authorities did not take steps to solve the problem, the transporters would launch a movement on Monday, calling a strike in the city and on Tuesday in Sindh and later throughout the country.

“We will not pay the Jugga Tax at any cost,” said Mr Qureshi, adding: “The administration must take notice of this unjustified imposition, or else the responsibility will lay with it alone if the situation went out of control.”

The secretary-general of the federation, Malik Taimur, said if the transporters began paying such taxes, bus stands would spring up at every other stop. He said they were already running their vehicles at a loss.

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.

“The (military) authorities have asked us to generate funds on our own for the development of the locality, saying that they cannot pay us anything,” said Zafar Iqbal, adding: “And we are doing it.”

As the two parties fight, residents of Bhitai Colony, Allahwala Town, Altaf Town, Darussalam Housing Society, Christian Town and those changing buses here for Ibrahim Hyderi, PAF base Korangi Creek and Fisheries suffer for no fault of theirs.—Naseer Ahmad