PESHAWAR, May 27: A human rights organisation on Friday moved the Peshawar High Court seeking cut in fare charged by the CNG operated public transport vehicles.

In this regard a writ petition was filed by the Human Rights Commission South Asia through its representative for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa/Fata, Advocate Abdus Samad Khan Marwat.

The respondents in the petition are: Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through secretary transport; chairman, Provincial Transport Authority (PTA); and secretary PTA.

The petitioner requested the high court to issue directives to ensure boarding of 15 persons in Toyota Hiace van as per its specifications.

Furthermore, he prayed to direct the respondents to formulate qualitative standard and proper precautionary measures for the CNG operated vehicles for securing the lives of passengers.

The petitioner stated that four types of public transport vehicles were being run on different routes in the province by the transporters duly permitted by the PTA and Regional Transport Authority including: Coasters/mini buses; air-conditioned buses/mini buses; ordinary buses; and, luxury buses.

He stated that from time to time Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) used to enhance the petrol/diesel rates and as such on April 30, 2011, diesel price was fixed at Rs97.31 per liter and the provincial government issued revised fare lists in the light of the same within a couple of days.

The petitioner added that soon after hike in price of diesel, Ogra announced hike in price of CNG and as such the price in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Potohar region, Islamabad and Rawalpindi was fixed at Rs59.57 per kg.

He added that due to competition, the CNG stations extended 15 to 20 per cent discount to the consumers and the rate came down to approximately Rs50 per kg. As such, he stated, the CNG was approximately 45 per cent cheap as compared to diesel but the CNG operated vehicles were charging fares as that of diesel.

He stated that the government was supposed to fix the fares of the CNG operated vehicles and extend the benefit of the same to general public, but so far no step had been taken in this regard.

The petitioner stated that after introduction of CNG in vehicles, no qualitative standard had been formulated by the provincial government to ensure safety of passengers considering the high inflammability of compressed natural gas.