January 23, 2006	Monday	Zilhaj 22, 1426

KARACHI, Jan 22: Sindh Transport Minister Mohammad Adil Siddiqui on Saturday night gave another ‘stern warning’ to owners of the multi-colour minibuses to adopt official colour scheme of their vehicles, after the defiant transporters ignored his two previous warnings of stern action.

The minister of transport has been trying hard for the last many months to give the haphazard and unregulated transport system of the city a respected urban look.

After many statements and polite warnings, the first serious warning came on Oct 18, 2005, when the minister took a serious notice of variety of colours of minibuses and coaches plying on city roads and ordered provincial transport department and DIG Traffic to ensure that all minibuses and coaches be painted in official colour so that they could look a part of respectable urban transport system.

He had also ordered secretary transport, DIG traffic, secretary PTA and EDO transport to take ‘stern note’ of complaints against tape recorders, use of pressure horns, overloading of passengers and boarding of male passengers in female compartments.

When no positive response came after this warning, the transport minister on Oct 27, 2005, presided over a high-level meeting again and took a serious notice of mismanagement of public transport system in the city.

This time he gave them a deadline of one month to ensure fitness of their vehicles according to criterions of the fitness certificate including the prescribed colour scheme, i.e. yellow and white for minibuses. He said that not only a large number of complaints against the transporters were being received, but it was also his personal observation that most of the public transport vehicles plying on Karachi roads were in shabby condition and they did not qualify the criterions of vehicle fitness certificate.

The minister said that smoke-emission, use of pressure horns, playing tape recorders during driving, excessive use of decorative linings, over-speeding, over-loading and boarding of male commuters in female compartment had virtually becoming the order of day in city’s public transport. He said that these factors were also contributing to increasing traffic accidents and they could not be tolerated any longer.

District Route Transport Authority officials told the minister that a colour scheme was approved in 1972 for 15-seater minibuses, according to which their body was to be painted in yellow and roof in white colour. He was further told that 25-seater coaches were introduced in 1992 under the prime minister’s scheme. They said that now a colour scheme was also being introduced for the 26-seater coaches so that colour uniformity of public transport could be ensured and commuters could easily recognize them.

Giving one-month notice to the owners of public transport vehicles to improve the fitness of their vehicles and change their colour according to official colour scheme, he asked transport secretary, secretary PTA and DIG traffic to implement the instructions in letter and spirit and ‘impound’ all public transport vehicles violating specifications of fitness certificate or colour scheme from Dec 1, 2005.

He said that ‘direct legal action’ should be taken against the owners of these vehicles.

However, the day of Dec 1, 2005 passed without any action against the transporters to implement the unified colour scheme and other orders of the minister.

In the mid of December again, the minister took another stern notice of the situation and ‘considering some technical issues faced by the transporters’ gave yet another deadline till Jan 1, 2006 for the implementation of the unified colour scheme of minibuses.

He warned of a ‘strict action’, if the transporters failed to comply with the orders this time. However, nothing happened as Jan 1, 2006 passed in a quite, and multi-colour minibuses continued to ply on roads at their sweet will, displaying the power of the mighty transporters.

He said that the transporters should not misread the patience of the government as its weakness.

This time the warning of the minister is ‘open-ended’ with no fixed deadline.—PPI