PESHAWAR, Aug 16: The Air-conditioned Transport and Fly Coach Owners Association has asked the NWFP governor to defer its plan of shifting the bus station from Roadways House to the GTS workshop as it would badly affect their business.

Addressing a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club here on Friday, the president of the association, Ihsanullah said that some bureaucrats were in the habit of issuing statements aimed at harassing the transporters.

He said that even the previous government wanted to shift the bus station but the transporters obtained a stay order from the supreme court.

The present government, he said, now wants to implement the same plan in clear violation of the apex’s court directives.

Flanked by the transporters’ representatives, he said, the previous government also had promised the construction of a model bus station, which is yet to be built.

The plan, if realized, would deprive many drivers, cleaners and other people from their livelihood besides causing financial losses to the owners of the vehicles.

On the one hand the government wanted to move the bus station from the Roadway House to GTS workshop to build a hospital there and provide clean atmosphere to the people of the area, and on the other it had allowed a bus station to a privately-owned transport company right in the middle of the city.

He said there was no difference between the service being provided by local transports and the one which had been allowed operations in the city, but some of the bureaucrats were out to defame the government by offending the transporters.

He also alleged that the SHO of Wazirabad, Gujranwala district, was harassing the drivers by asking them to arrange for a armed guard in every bus. This, he said was the job of the police to arrange for security of the people, including passengers and the transporters.