PESHAWAR, April 17: The Regional Transport Authority (RTA) on Thursday approved a 20 per cent increase in the fare for the public transport in the Peshawar district.

The decision was taken in a meeting held here on Thursday with secretary, RTA, Engineer Muhammad Sohail Khan in the chair. The meeting was also attended by chairman Transport Committee of District Council, Peshawar, Abdul Wahid Qadri, Public Transport Owners Association, Peshawar, president Jehangir Afridi, Minibus Owners president Fayaz Khan and officials of the concerned departments.

The meeting increased the fare for the short distance from Rs5 to Rs6 and Rs12 from Rs10 for the long distance, respectively.

Meanwhile, talking to Dawn the transporters said they had demanded an increase of Rs3 for per bus stop, but the officials did not approve it.

Public Transport Owners Association, Peshawar, president Jehangir Afridi said though the price of petroleum products was increasing with short intervals the fare was not revised in accordance with that ratio. He added the transporters would not be able to cover the loss due to hike in petroleum products with the increase of Rs1 or Rs2.

The Punjab government, he claimed, had already increased Rs2 for per bus stop soon after the increase in the fuel rates, but the decision was taken with much delay in Peshawar.

The government, he said, should have increased the fare when the prices of petroleum products were raised last month, adding that the application given by the transporters of Peshawar to the concerned authorities was not paid attention.

On the other hand, secretary RTA Muhammad Sohail, told Dawn that the decision got delayed due to transfer of the district coordination officer, Peshawar, as he had to approve the fare raise.

He said the revised fare could be charged from tomorrow (Saturday) after the distribution of the revised fare list among the transporters so that the possible scuffles of passengers with the transport operators could be averted.

Meanwhile, the Sarhad Public Transport Legal Action Committee president Haji Ihsanullah, expressing shock over the proposal for further increase in the prices of petroleum products by the government, asked the latter to avoid doing so.

In a statement here on Thursday, he said the prices had already been increased twice within a short period of time which had caused many problems both for the transporters and the passengers as well.

Mr Ihsanullah said the ever increasing prices of daily use commodities had already broken back of the people and if the government went ahead with further increase in the fuel prices it would multiply miseries of the masses forcing them to agitation.

He said that the transporters in the NWFP had been extending full cooperation to the government but the latter was not reciprocating.

He alleged that the passengers were not ready to pay as per the revised fare lists and that was why scuffles among the transport operators and passengers had become a routine matter.

He demanded of the NWFP government to raise the issue with the federal government not to increase the prices of the petroleum products.