MITHI, Dec 16: Altercations and arguments between the commuters and the transporters in Tharparkar district have become a routine affair as the former are not ready to pay exorbitant fare after the recent reduction in the rate of petroleum products and the latter are not prepared to decrease the fares.

Though four consecutive cuts have been made in the prices of petroleum products since Oct 1, neither the Regional Transport Authority nor the district administration has revised the fares or made any announcement in this regard.

Consequently the transporters continue charging the old exorbitant fares from the poor Thari commuters, which has further added to their miseries.

A visit to some of the transport booking offices and information gathered by Dawn revealed that though the government had fixed paisas 27 and 39 fare per km for pucca/kutcha routes respectively, the transporters were charging double fares at most of the routes in Tharparkar district.

The coasters operating between Nagarparkar and Mithi cover 150 kilometres (106 km kutcha and 44 km pucca) so they should charge Rs53.22 from a passenger but the conductors of these vehicles are charging Rs100 to Rs120.

A number of commuters interviewed by this correspondent pointed out that according to the previous notification of the RTA, the fare of a coaster journey from Churio to Naokot, Adhiga to Naokot, Kharoro to Naokot, Rathi to Naokot and Nagarparkar to Naokot for the distance of about 200km should be around Rs73.20 but the transporters are charging Rs140 at these routes.

Similarly for journey from Mithi to Chelhar (29km), Mithi to Diplo (39km) and Mithi to Naokot (50km), a passenger has to pay Rs20 while the fares stand at Rs7.83, Rs10.53 and Rs13.50 respectively.

Some commuters complained if a passenger refused to pay the excessive fare, conductor drops him wherever he likes after humiliating him. The disgraced passenger has to wait for another coaster and is compelled to pay the higher fare for the remaining journey.

On the other hand the coaster operators claimed that they could not meet their domestic expenses and the expenditure incurred on their vehicles from their limited income and they were finding it too difficult to ply their vehicles by charging nominal fares because the rates of spare parts have increased manifold.

The poor commuters of Thar, who are suffering a lot at the hands of fleecing transporters, have urged the government to evolve a comprehensive strategy for making the transporters bound to charge the prescribed fare from the passengers.