KARACHI, Dec 12: Investors appear reluctant in bringing new large buses in the city owing to the frequent rise in the diesel prices, lowering of profit margin, and lack of government interest.

It is a common perception among transporters that petrol prices would go up by Rs60 per litre and a proportionate increase would be witnessed in diesel prices. The increase in petroleum prices puts a significant impact on all other items increasing the maintenance cost and labour.

“If we bring new large buses we have to enter an agreement with the government and it is very difficult for us to stick to the agreement in an atmosphere of frequent price hike. The power of purchase of a common man is also being reduced day by day with the intermittent rise in all essential commodities and in these circumstances, increase in fare would not be suitable,” said a transporter.

Transporters said that the impact of price hike on their business was negative and the government was not ready to compensate it.

A company, which had been running almost 275 buses under the umbrella of the Karachi Public Transport Society (KPTS), has recently packed up its business as its owners settled abroad. Sources said that the KPTS had managed to fill the gap after offering four local transporters to run their buses.

However, the number of buses on ten KPTS routes has decreased to less than 200 buses.

The Swede-Bus Pakistan, which had brought in 32 Scania buses, has limited its operation to 10 buses on only two routes under the KPTS. The company, which had claimed to bring about a change in the transport culture, could not sustain the bureaucratic red-tapism and decided to wind-up its business.

However, the sources accused the owner of the Swede-Bus Pakistan of bringing old buses under the garb of new ones hoodwinking the authorities. They said that most of their buses broke down and were parked in the Surjani Town depot.

The sources said that only those Scania buses were operational which were painted with advertisements of different companies as the Swede-Bus Pakistan had received payments in advance in terms of those ads. The company was compelled to run those buses and as soon as the agreement was over, the buses would be taken off road.

So has happened to the Urban Transport Scheme (UTS) launched by the transport and communication department of the city government to address the transport problems. The UTS was launched aiming at solving transport problems and providing safe, comfortable, and better transport facilities to the citizens.

However, soon after the launch of the UTS, the Green Bus Company, which had imported buses from China, wound up its operation as all of the buses were seized by the bank after the company failed to pay back instalments of the loan.

Trans Livia is the other company, which has been operating 25 large buses, on two important routes. All of its buses had been seized by the bank after the company defaulted.

Officials said that the number of large buses under the UTS had risen to 300 but it had gradually decreased to 250 buses. They said that the government had been trying to improve the transport system in the city and trying to attract local and foreign investors in the transport sector to bring large buses.

According to the officials the government has been considering possible incentives to be offered to the investors, however they did not elaborate on those incentives.

Commuters are of the opinion that the large buses, be they under the UTS or the KPTS, have been overcharging fares and there was no check on them. They also complained that the traffic police and authorities concerned did not hold transporters accountable for overloading and not closing doors of the buses.

They said that the drivers and conductors of buses, who were bound to wear uniform, had never followed the rules. Besides, they said that the transporters had increased fare on their own without waiting for the government’s notification. The issue of overcharging is serious in nature as it leads to scuffles between bus conductors and commuters almost every day, they added.

Officials said that they had received several complaints about these issues but an effective check could not be put without an active cooperation of the traffic police.

They referred to a meeting of the transport minister with the inter-city transporters held a couple of days before Eid in which the minister had directed the traffic police to check violations of overcharging and overloading.

They said that high-level decisions and interest in improving transport culture could yield positive results within the city as well.