KARACHI, April 3: A number of towns in Karachi are planning to remove last stops of buses and mini-buses from their present spots. In the wake of the recent tragic accident at Karimabad in Gulberg Town, transporters and elected representatives of the city

have locked horns with each other.

Transporters have registered cases against the Nazims of Orangi, Gadap and Gulberg towns. They have accused Farooq Naimatullah, Nazim Gulberg Town, of physically intimidating drivers.

Gulberg Town has threatened to remove the 5-c terminus if the transporters fail to shift their parking on the ground off the main road and direct drivers and cleaners to behave properly in residential areas.

The ground at which the terminus is situated is a plot for a primary school, a dispensary and a mosque. Only the mosque has been built.

The planners of Karachi have failed to allocate any provision for termination points of wagons, buses and mini-buses and there are about 190 such terminuses around the city of which only three are off-street.

According to a study of the Traffic Engineering Bureau (TEB) of the defunct KDA, out of the 32 sites identified, 16 were partially developed by the KMC (now defunct) but no progress could be made in that regard due to disagreement between transporters and authorities.

Nazim Karachi Naimatullah Khan has repeatedly said that the city government will even consider the cancellation of route permits of certain transporters to bridle them.

However, the RTA, which gives and cancels route permits, has not cancelled a single route permit of any bus/mini-bus so far.—PPI