PESHAWAR, Dec 10: Taking advantage of the Eidul Fitr, the transporters earned almost double income than the sanctioned fares from the passengers travelling on all routes in the NWFP, the passengers approaching the city from different cities and towns revealed on Tuesday.
“I paid Rs40 to Mardan from Peshawar when I went there for Eidul Fitr. On returning back to Peshawar, the conductor again charged Rs 35 instead of the sanctioned fare of Rs 20,” said Mohammad Zahid, a resident of Mardan. According to him, Eidul Fitr proved a boom for the transporters, because a day or two before the Eid, the people throng to the bus-stands to reach their hometowns in their bid to celebrate the festivity with their relatives and friends. Seizing the opportunity, the transporters raise the fare almost by 100 per cent to earn more money during the Eid.
Similarly, the people going to and coming from long destinations like Dir and Mingora paid Rs 150 and 100 instead of sanctioned fare of Rs 73 and Rs 50, respectively. The people visiting to long destinations like Chitral, Bajuar, Miran Shah and Buner etc., were the worst sufferers, because they had to pay more than double of the fare fixed by the Provincial Transport Authority (PTA).
The PTA had issued a fare-table on May 7 and devised a formula under which the transporters had to increase or decrease the fares in line with the fluctuation in the fuel prices. However, the transporters are not complying with the formula and the passengers often complain of being overcharged. The fare list also describes the would-be fares in case there is a variation the diesel prices. The government, on Dec 1, had slashed the price of diesel by 1.6 per cent or Rs 1.93 per litre, which happened to be the second cut in the last 15 days but the transporters continue to fleece the passengers. The transporters, however, argue that the fare list falls too short of meeting their expenses.
The transporters have their own reasons for overcharging the passengers. They say that they had invested Rs 1.6 million on buying a single vehicle, which hardly earned an amount of Rs 1,000 for them.
“We pay Rs 200 to 400 to police. Rs 400 go to driver and conductor. There is very little or nothing if we do not overcharge the commuters,” said a transporter. According to him, had he invested such a huge amount in some other business, he would have been earning more and more.
Another transporter said the transporters had suffered a great deal in the wake of lack of passengers in the month of Ramazan. He argued that most of them could not run their vehicles in Ramazan and paid the wages to drivers and conductors from their pockets. Therefore, they resorted to overcharging in Eid in order to recover the losses they had incurred in Ramazan.
The PTA and the police have failed to check the overcharging by the transporters, owing to their nexus with each other.
