KARACHI, June 1: Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad on Friday continued to offer incentives to transporters in what is seen by observers as a government attempt to dissuade them from staging a three-day strike from June 8 in protest against the losses they incurred during the May 12 violence.

The latest concession comes in the form of gubernatorial directives for the formulation of a strategy to “issue route permits to unregistered public transport in Karachi including buses and mini-buses”.

“Despite a ban on these vehicles on various grounds, they are plying on different routes of the metropolis causing difficulty for the government in planning because of the unavailability of their real statistics,” said Dr Ibad on Friday in conversation with a delegation of the Karachi Transport Ittehad led by Syed Irshad Hussain Bukhari, according to a press statement issued by the Governor House.

Late last month, the governor directed the relevant officials to give the owners of worn-out, smoke-emitting and noisy rickshaws a new deadline of 2010 to make their vehicles environmentally friendly.

During a meeting with a 30-member delegation of the Rickshaw-Taxi Association at the Governor House, Dr Ibad said that the new timeframe and modalities for changes in the fitness or phasing out of the noisy vehicles should be followed under a ruling of the Sindh High Court.

As a follow-up to a SHC verdict given about a year back, the Sindh government had decided to ban existing rickshaws and had given until June 2007 to switch over to four-stroke vehicles.

The governor was informed that there were about 60,000 auto-rickshaws in the province and their replacement would require a considerable amount of time.

In Friday’s meeting, the governor, much to the delight of the transporters, said new routes should be introduced so that unregistered vehicles could be made part of the system. The delegation informed Dr Ibad about burnt vehicles in detail. He told them that Rs70million had already been approved for 352 vehicles set on fire in incidents of violence.

The governor’s charm offensive did not only earn him the admiration of the transporters but also endeared him to the Pakhtun Action Committee (Loya Jirga).

PAC Chairman Shahi Syed, who earlier announced that a three-day strike would be held from June 8, said the PAC had nothing to do with any political party, not even with the Awami National Party.