FAISALABAD, May 24: The air-conditioned bus services, including the Daewoo Express, have reportedly enhanced their fares by five to 20 per cent on the plea that the prices of petroleum products have significantly been increased over the last few months.

The Daewoo bus service, out of its 44 routes in different parts of the country, have enhanced fares on 36 routes from Rs10 to Rs30 for each passenger. The maximum increase of Rs30 has been made on the Lahore-Sadiqabad route for which it is now charging Rs600 from each passenger against Rs570 being charged till a fortnight ago.

It has also enhanced Rs20 on the Lahore-Rawalpindi-Multan-Peshawar-Abbotabad-Bahawalpur, Rawalpindi-Multan-Khanewal-Bahawalpur, Multan-Abbotabad-Naushera-Lahore, Naushera-Faisalabad, and on the Jhang-Rawalpindi-Abbotabad routes.

Similarly, the Daewoo has also raised Rs10 for each trip between its other 22 routes.

Talking to Dawn, some of the passengers claimed that there was no system of checking an increase in fares by multinational bus companies owing to the reasons best known to the provincial transport department authorities.

They said the government had not enhanced the prices of the POL products during the last one month, but the air-conditioned bus services had raised the fares without any justification.

Meanwhile, other privately-run coaches throughout the country have also enhanced their fares.

An amount of Rs120 is being charged from a passenger of air-conditioned bus running between Faisalabad and Lahore. Earlier, Rs100 were charged for the same route.

A similar raise has also been made on the Faisalabad-Multan-Rawalpindi-Khanewal-Sargodha-Gujranwala-Sialkot-Bahawalpur-Peshawar-Abbotabad routes.

When contacted, the Regional Transport Authority officials and the local traffic police said instructions had been issued to all the bus services not to increase fares without the government’s approval.

However, they said, some of the bus services were violating the directive and they would be taken to task.