PESHAWAR, May 8: The district government is expected to finalise at a meeting to be held on May 10 a proposal regarding running 80 CNG buses in the city.

According to sources, the service had been proposed four years ago, but it could not materialise due to resistance from the ‘transport mafia’.

With a view to providing an integrated urban transport system, the provincial government had notified 21 new routes in the Peshawar district in July 2003, officials of the transport department said.

“A decision had been taken some four years ago that the main bus route in Peshawar — General Bus Stand to the Karkhano market — should be reserved for CNG buses, but due to lack of government will and the influence of politicians-cum-transporters, the plan couldn’t materialise,” a transport department official told Dawn.

Under the new proposal, the district government would also be finalising the fare of the CNG buses. Initially, 50 buses would be run on the “A-class” route — main road from the Haji Camp bus stand to the Karkhano market — and 30 buses on the “B-class” route. The number of buses could be increased later, an official said.

However, the plan is again meeting opposition from transporters. According to sources, transporters close to district nazim Ghulam Ali, who is also chairman of the District Regional Transport Authority, are not in favour of CNG buses.

“We oppose the CNG bus service because it will cause loss to our business,” said local transporter Yar Mohammad. The district government should take transporters into confidence, he said.

“The government should find out some way to make use of our buses or buy them to save us from loss,” he said. “We can’t take part in bidding and if some company from other province comes here to launch the project, we’ll protest against it,” he said.

Transport officials said Peshawar was an “open playing field” for private transport companies and they would be provided with a ‘classified route’. He conceded that local transporters might oppose the plan.

Peshawar Transport Company chief executive Anjum Afroz Rana, said he had backed out of the joint venture of running the CNG bus service with the provincial government because of the influential transport mafia, corruption and other bureaucratic hurdles.