KARACHI, April 23: Millions of commuters suffer a lot of agony and humiliation daily while travelling in overloaded, shabby, smoke-emitting and recklessly driven buses and minibuses while the concerned authorities continue to look the other way.
Though one may find many buses and minibuses plying on the roads of Karachi, but their number is very small if compared to the actual needs of the citizens of this mega city with a population of 15 million plus.
In fact, a delegation of Japan External Trade Organisation (Jetro) was recently told by the Karachi transport officials that about 40 passengers vie for a single bus seat in Karachi. It means that to cater the need of the citizens, for each public transport vehicle presently plying in the city there is a need to add 39 more.
It is worth to mull over when there is such huge potential and lucrative profits in the public transport, why new investment is not pouring in this sector? Government officials and organisations of transporters have their own answers for this question, but the citizens are of the opinion that a strong transporters-bureaucracy nexus does not want entry of more players in the field to secure very high margin of profits for the old players, who are running the public transport sector in Karachi. It is alleged that after industrialists, builders and traders, transporters are the one who paid the maximum amount of bribe in Karachi.
It is often argued that the black sheep in the bureaucracy fully knew that if public transport vehicles were fit enough to ply safely on roads, if their drivers obeyed the traffic rules, if they were painted according to official colour scheme, if their monopolies on routes is ended, if they had to ply on their full run of their route, and if there number was sufficient enough to avoid over-loading of passengers on roofs and foot-boards, there would be nobody to grease their palms.
The sad doom of Karachi Circular Railway and Karachi Transport Corporation had closed all doors of competition and given a completely free hand to transporters to call their shots, and they are fully enjoying it, while it is the meek commuter of the most educated and modern city of the country to travel in obsolete buses and minibuses like goats.
The situation would remain the same till the commuters and political parties ruling on their votes raise a strong voice against this mess. Public transport sector in Karachi is in dire need of major change.
In order to introduce a complete overhaul in the public transport sector of Karachi the basic requirement is a strong political will. This is a big task and it could not be done with hollow statements. In fact, citizens are now fed up with high-pitching slogans and tall claims. They say that no one, how smart he may be, could befool the citizens all the time, hence without swallowing the bitter pill no concrete result could be achieved. If the authorities really wanted to give Karachittes a fair and disciplined public transport system they had sooner or later to display a strong will.
To tame the mighty transporters mafia, it is vital to introduce an element of competition in this tightly monopolized sector. A strong competition would force transporters mend their ways.
Only a strong competition would force them to bring about a change in commuter-conductor relation and maintain the fitness and look of their vehicles as well. The strong competition would also break the ruthless route monopoly of transporters over roads and results in plying of more buses and minibuses for endless waiting queues of commuters at bus stops.
The third factor would be an increase in salaries of traffic police so that honest and efficient traffic policemen could be deployed on roads. A minibus driver would only abide by traffic rules when he knew that he would not go with a traffic violation by pushing Rs10 note into the greedy hand of a corrupt traffic sergeant.
And to top all this, a strong reaction and protest of the commuters themselves is a must. In fact, the commuters of Karachi are the meekest in the whole country. They silently bear all atrocities of transport mafia. They travel in stuffed buses and minibuses like animals and do not mind the rude language and uncivilized behaviour of drivers and conductors.
The transporters-bureaucracy nexus fully knew this psychology of Karachi commuters and ruthlessly exploit it for their windfall.
It is high time that the scheme of things be changed in the metropolis, especially in public transport sector.—PPI
