RECENTLY, my brother and his wife decided to take a trip up north, and booked their train tickets online for Lahore as the first stop. When they reached Karachi cantonment station, there was no sign of the train and they learnt that its departure had been delayed by three hours. Since there are no worthwhile seating arrangements at the railway station, they faced inconvenience while waiting for their journey to begin.

From Lahore to Rawalpindi, a ‘premier’ bus service tickets were booked from their DHA terminal. They reached the terminal half-an-hour before departure time and were told that due to less passenger traffic, the bus service had been cancelled and the company operating the service did not bother to inform the passengers. They had no alternative but to proceed to the Kalma Chowk terminal to catch a bus leaving at a later hour.

They faced the same situation at the Rawalpindi terminal operated by the same ‘premier’ company, when the onward journey was cancelled without assigning any reason. The performance of the railway as well as the bus company is akin to all sectors of life. We have become a dysfunctional state. Nothing works and the citizens are taken for a ride. It is time someone, anyone, took notice and set things right in a state that was quoted as a dynamic country in the early 1960s.

Jaffar Naqvi
Lahore

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2020