LAHORE, Jan 11: The Lahore-Amritsar and Nankana Sahib-Amritsar bus services, launched early last year, are continuously running into loss as they are operating at only 41 per cent of their seat capacity, according to the data of the last five months collected by Dawn.

The reason being cited for low turnout for these two buses is Indian government’s strict policy of issuing visas for its Punjab. On the other hand, the Lahore-Delhi bus service is operating to its capacity and most of the time passengers are forced to wait for weeks for their turn to book a seat.

According to the data made available to Dawn, the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation and India’s Punjab Road Ways operated 160 buses during July-November last year — two buses on each route on a weekly basis. The PTDC and PRW buses’ seating capacity is 39 and 42, respectively.

On Lahore-Amritsar route, the PTDC conducted 40 operations and transported 470 passengers (28.31 per cent of seating capacity) from Lahore to Amritsar and back. While the PRW transported 438 passengers (26.07 per cent of seating capacity) in 40 operations on the same route.

The passenger traffic on Nankana Sahib-Amritsar route remained abysmally low as seat occupancy rate was recorded at 13.92 per cent and 11.37 per cent for PTDC and PRW buses.

The PTDC transported 231 passengers from Nankana Sahib to Amritsar and back, while the PRW transported 191 passengers from Amritsar to Nankana Sahib and back.

It is also learnt that the number of passengers travelling from Amritsar remained lower than the passengers travelling from Lahore and Nankana Sahib. As many as 380 passengers travelled from Amritsar to Lahore, while 528 passengers moved from Lahore to Amritsar on both PTDC and PRW buses. Similarly, some 205 passengers travelled from Amritsar to Nankana Sahib and 217 passengers moved from Nankana Sahib to Amritsar.

The officials admitted that buses on both sides were running into loss as the fare was fixed to run the buses on a “no profit, no loss” basis, if they run with full capacity.

Referring to the gravity of low turnout of passengers on Nankana Sahib-Amritsar route, officials said both PTDC and PRW were occasionally forced to operate their buses without any passenger as they were supposed to reach other destination to pick passengers next day.

Answering a question, the PTDC officials admitted that they sometimes operated Pakistani bus from Lahore instead of Nankana Sahib to Amritsar as most passengers, who were supposed to return India, had come to Lahore to visit places. In these cases, they said, the PTDC office also issued tickets for Nankana Sahib-Amritsar bus with a condition that they would board from Lahore.

However, they said, this was not a case with the Indian bus as it always went to Nankana Sahib and return from the same place. The Indian bus, however, did drop passengers on Jail Road on their request.

As for the visa policy, almost every person contacted told this reporter that they were unable to visit India on tourist visa as it was nowhere in the visa priority despite all requests and suggestions.

According to the Indian visa policy, people said only blood relations, traders, NGOs and student groups could come on different events and for medical reasons. They said the general public could only get the opportunity at a time when there would be a major sporting event like a cricket match. In these cases, they said, it was again very hard to get a visa and a ticket for the match. They also complained that neither Pakistan nor India had opened visa counters at bordering cities.

Those travelling by bus between Lahore-Amritsar and Nankana Sahib-Amritsar also complain that the fare of Rs900 and Rs1,200 was too high for the general public as it was only a 60-kilometre drive. While the Lahore-Delhi bus service fare is Rs1,500 that includes breakfast, lunch and evening tea during over 350-kilometre run.

The Indian passengers coming to Lahore from Amritsar said it was a great hassle to travel on this bus as they were supposed to obtain visa from New Delhi and then get an NOC from the SP office in Amritsar.