LAHORE, Jan 29: The newly-developed City District Government bus stand on Bund Road has failed to attract the transporters despite its better location, facilities and larger area for the passengers as compared to the private bus stands in the area.
The bus stand wears a deserted look despite its comparative location advantage and facilities for departure of 22 buses at a time. Only an average 85 buses are operating from the bus stand daily with a capacity for operation of 600 buses a day against the transporters' expression of interest to run an average 300 buses daily prior to its inauguration towards the end of December.
The number of buses operating from the bus stand is disappointing in view of the fact that most of the passengers desirous of travelling to southern Punjab destinations or intending to travel towards Islamabad side via motorway approach nearly a dozen private bus stands on Bund Road from Chowk Yateem Khana side. The CDG bus stand is the first they come across.
Transporters have not been attracted to the bus stand despite the fact they are being offered the facility to operate the buses against payment of charges equal to a single one-way fare of the route whereas a large number of buses are operating from the private bus stands charging 10 per cent of the price of tickets sold for the journey.
The CDG bus stand is also larger than any of a dozen private bus stands on Bund Road. It has been developed over an area of 26 kanals whereas the area of most of the private bus stands is less than 10 kanals. The CDG bus stand has covered bays for arrival and departure of 22 buses at a time but most of the private bus stands have arrival and departure facilities for around half a dozen buses at a time.
It has separate restaurants for men and women and waiting halls for accommodating 300 people at a time whereas the private bus stands have much smaller waiting rooms and restaurants and tuck shops.
Yet it has failed to attract the transporters because of handling of the affairs of the commercial project in a bureaucratic manner.
Whereas signboards giving details of routes have been installed on all the private bus stands, the CDG has not even bothered to install a board even for the identification of the place as a bus stand.
The private bus stands have opened booking offices in different parts of the city and are allowing the facility of booking on telephone, but the CDG officials have not bothered to get a telephone installed at the bus stand developed at a cost of Rs20 million.
The CDG first invited applications for pre-qualification of transporters ready to operate at least 10 buses from the bus stand. Only those offering to pay a three or more single route fares per trip were proposed to be allowed to operate buses from the stand. The plan, however, failed because only 27 transporters applied for pre-qualification.
They then decided to allow the transporters to operate the buses on first come first served basis and charge a single route fare per trip for the first month to attract the transporters to the stand. The first month has already passed and they have been able to attract only 85 buses for operation from the stand daily.