LAHORE, Oct 2: Transporters will resist city district government attempts to wind up private bus stands on Bund Road to facilitate the development of its Multan Road general bus stand.

Commenting on the CDG assurance to developers to wind up the bus stands on the completion of the Multan Road bus stand, Pakistan Motor Transport Federation vice-president Nasir Ahmad Butt said transporters would approach the court to save their bus stands which had been established under the law after meeting all requirements.

He said the private bus stands in different parts of the city had been wound up under a martial law order in 1962 to shift the bus operations to the Badami Bagh bus stand, but there was no martial law in the country at present.

He alleged the CDG had decided to develop the Multan Road bus stand not with a view to provide facilities to the travelling public but to generate revenue by extorting fee from transporters. Passengers using the Multan Road bus stand would also be given a raw deal like those using the Badami Bagh bus stand despite charging Rs40 or a single fare from every bus leaving the place, he said.

He said the federal and provincial governments were pursuing the policies of privatization and deregulation, but the CDG wanted to have a monopoly over the establishment of bus stands instead of providing civic amenities to Lahorites. He said the CDG should attract passengers to its Multan Road bus stand by offering better facilities to them instead of winding up the Bund Road stands.

He said the CDG wanted to develop the new bus stand for 4,000 buses, but more than 1,000 buses were not expected to operate from it. Most of the buses ply between Lahore and northern Punjab and very few between Lahore and southern Punjab.

He said the district governments all over the province were winding up private bus stands and establishing their own centralized stands to extort revenue from the transporters. Facilities like waiting rooms, restaurants, toilets, parking and security were not available at any of these stands. The passengers could travel by the buses of their choice at the private bus stands, but had no option except boarding one of the two buses waiting departure at the general bus stands.

Shoaib Khan Niazi, the Bund Road union council Nazim and sponsor of one of the 14 private bus stands, said some 1,000 buses, mostly airconditioned, were operating from 14 private bus stands for all parts of the country established after meeting all legal requirements. Most of the bus stands had airconditioned waiting rooms, restaurants and toilet facilities for the passengers in accordance with the law. No bus stand had been established on less than four kanals and complaint books were available at all stands. Any transporter failing to redress the complaints of passengers was not allowed to operate his buses from the stands.

He said the city government had no right to wind up the private bus stands to compel the transporters to operate their buses from its Multan Road bus stand which would definitely lack the facilities available at the private ones. He said hundreds of employees would be rendered jobless if the bus stands were wound up, and passengers would be compelled to travel 20 kilometres for availing the inter-city transport facility.