KARACHI, March 4: The city government has failed to meet the target of bringing 500 new buses under the Urban Transport Scheme (UTS) on the city roads. There are only about a 100 buses running on city roads at the present.

However, the EDO Transport, Tahir Soomro, when contacted, claimed the city government had brought 155 more buses, in addition to the 100 already being run, bringing the total number of buses under the UTS to 255.

The city govt officials had announced at a ceremony held at the Expo Centre in October last year that they would bring in some 500 new buses under the UTS by Dec 2004. The city government had for the purpose signed an agreement with Hino Pak, they had said.

Several transport companies including Hilton Transport Corporation, Translivia, Altaf Shahrukh Transport, Neelum Corporation and City Express had been allowed by the city govt to ply new large-capacity buses on city roads, but these companies were not yet able to start their business.

On the other hand, due to lack of maintenance of these buses, their numbers on roads had further reduced, and about 16 of 36 air-conditioned green buses, run from Surjani to Tower and from Surjani to Sea View (routes 4-C and 4-B) were out of order and standing at garages in North Karachi.

Disappointedly, commuters have to wait for hours for these buses due to their shortage. In addition, organizers of these buses were continuously violating rules set under the UTS, which prohibited them from overloading and stopping vehicles at places other than designated bus stops, charging excessive fares, etc.

Some commuters said when they asked drivers of these buses to close doors while driving, they were told that the doors were out of order and needed repair. EDO Transport Tahir Soomro informed that there were several reasons for the delay in bringing new buses on roads, saying the Hino company had failed to meet the demands of local transport companies as it was unable to produce a large number of such buses in a short time. -PPI