MUZAFFARGARH: The district coordination officer (DCO) has surrendered the services of the regional transport authority (RTA) secretary to the Punjab government because of commuters’ complaints about high fares.

DCO Hafiz Shaukat Ali has also asked the Punjab government to transfer Assistant Commissioner Qudratullah Shafique over corruption.

Despite a cut in POL prices by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra), most of transport owners were charging high fares in the district.

Rana Kashif, a resident of Shehr Sultan, told Dawn the RTA secretary had ignored public complaints and the commuters met the DCO to complain about high fares. The DCO ordered the officials to inquire into the matter. On the reports of the officials, he surrendered RTA secretary’s services to the provincial headquarters in Lahore.

Commuters Asghar Ali and Khizar Abbas told Dawn the transport owners were unlawfully charging them 100pc fare but they never showed them the fare list issued by the government. They said before the notification of Ogra regarding cut in POL prices, they had to pay Rs50 from Mahmood Kot to Muzaffargarh though the official fare was about Rs25. They said the government officials and traffic police were not helping them in getting relief.

When contacted, the sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) traffic said the RTA secretary was responsible for providing the list of fare charges and traffic police had no authority to check the fares.

DCO Hafiz Shaukat Ali said the fare lists would be provided soon and that he had asked Muzaffargarh AC Haider Abbas to look after matter.

Meanwhile, the Alipur AC had added fake names of flood victims for relief package. The DG Khan commissioner ordered Rajanpur ADC Arshad Gopang to probe into the matter and his team visited Alipur tehsil where they found no flood victims whose names were in the list.

On the ADC’s report, the DCO cancelled the list, asked the revenue official to hold another survey of the place. He also recommended to the provincial government authorities to transfer the AC.

Published in Dawn December 20th , 2014