SIALKOT, Jan 30: The General Bus Stand established at Daska by the tehsil municipal administration at a cost of Rs5 million has failed to achieve its prime objective owing to the absence of basic facilities.

The TMA had built the GBS at Daska some years back with a sole aim of providing better facilities to transporters and commuters, but the poor planning of the authorities concerned has become the main cause of the wastage of the public money.

Transporters have refused to park their vehicles at the bus stand as the place is mostly occupied by encroachers and stray dogs. Besides, the bus stand has no proper facility of drinking water and waiting rooms. Auto workshop owners have also grabbed the place by parking scores of vehicles there. It converts into a pool for animals and stray dogs during the rainy season.

Most of the transporters park their vehicles on main roads which create hurdles in the smooth flow of traffic. Long hours of traffic jams on roads adjacent to the GBS have become a daily affair.

The people have urged the provincial and district governments to take stock of the situation.

When contacted, transporters said that bus stand had been established without proper planning and without taking them into confidence.

They claimed that the land selected for this purpose was not suitable because it was surrounded by encroachments barring transporters from parking their vehicles in it.

Passengers, they claimed, avoided entering the congested bus stand and preferred to get into the vehicles parked on main roads.

Transporters said they paid taxes regularly to the Daska TMA, but they were still deprived of basic facilities as promised by the TMA.

Several years ago, the Daska TMA had planned to shift the general bus stand from its existing location to town’s outskirts on the strong demand of local transporters, but the project was never materialized for some unknown reasons.

When contacted, officials of the Daska TMA refused to make any comment in this regard.