RAWALPINDI: Commuters have yet to reap the benefit of the cut in petroleum prices as the transporters are not implementing Re1 cut in fares announced by the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) early this month.

For the first time in the recent past, the government made a drastic cut in the prices of petroleum products - petrol by Rs9.43 and diesel by Rs8 per litre.

At an energy conference on Wednesday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hinted at further cut in the prices of petroleum products next month. “We will announce a reasonable cut in the prices of petroleum products this time as well,” he maintained.

The reduction will ease inflationary pressure on the people, he added.

Strangely, the City District Government Rawalpindi, Regional Transport Authority and the traffic police have failed to keep a check on transporters overcharging let alone implementing the Re1 reduction in fares.

Benefits of cut in POL prices yet to be passed on to commuters

“I work with a Islamabad-based private firm and daily pay Rs100 as a public transport fare,” said Mohammad Imran.

The original fare is Rs31 per head from Rawalpindi to Polyclinic but the transporters charged almost Rs40 with impunity as neither the traffic police nor the RTA officials take action against them for overcharging, he added.

Sohail Ahmed, a resident of Tench Bhatta, said he daily paid Rs15 from Chungi No 22 to Saddar and Rs40 from Saddar to Zero Point instead of Rs10 and Rs25, the officially-fixed fare.

“The government makes tall claims about providing benefit to the people but the situation on the ground is different as the local government has failed to implement its own prices of edibles and fares,” he said.

Mohammad Asghar, a resident of Allama Iqbal Colony, said public transporters had made a cartel.

“For instance, if a passenger protests overcharging, the conductor offloads them and other transporters refuse to take them to the destination,” he said.

On the other hand, public transporters were of the view that the government had issued the fare list in commensurate with the CNG price. Since CNG is not available, the government should further increase the fares keeping in view the petrol prices, they added.

Raja Riaz, Muttahida Transport Union for Rawalpindi and Islamabad, told Dawn that the Punjab government was providing CNG to a bus service from Raja Bazaar to Gujar Khan but not to other transporters.

He said the fares should be fixed keeping in view the ground realities.

With regard to complaints about overcharging, he said the citizens should contact the transporters union as its telephone numbers had been displayed on the vehicles and bus stands.

When contacted, secretary Awais Manzoor Tarar said the bus service from Raja Bazaar to Gujar Khan was provided CNG as per an agreement between the bus service and the Punjab government.

However, he said the RTA implemented the fare list issued by the government and all the transporters were charging fares as per the new list. “Traffic police and the RTA officials visited the bus stops to keep a check on fares daily,” he claimed.

To a question, he said the government was considering further decreasing the petroleum prices to compensate the people following the closure of the CNG stations for four months.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2014