Horrid days for city’s commuters come in pairs

Karachi
Ejaz Majeed, 35, is a resident of Malir City and works in a garment factory in FB Area. On Tuesday, he waited for a bus for 40 minutes as there were very few public transport vehicles plying the roads that day because of the suspension of CNG to filling stations for two days in a row.
“It has now become a daily routine to travel on the rooftop of buses or hanging from their doors,” said Majeed.
“But the suspension of CNG for two consecutive days adds to the woes of the commuters.”
On Wednesday morning, Majeed again faced the same problem as most of the buses were lined up at CNG stations that opened at 8am.
“Travelling to my workplace in public transport vehicles is more tiresome and irritating than my 10-hour long work-shift at a garment factory,” said Majeed.
Majeed is among millions of Karachi’s residents who face immense difficulties because of two-day closure of CNG stations.
Commuters, transporters and civic rights activists say that in the absence of public transport vehicles, commuters are compelled to travel on foot-boards and rooftops of heavily-crowded buses and mini-buses, risking their lives. Others opt to walk to their destinations.
Syed Mehmood Afridi, the general secretary of the Karachi Transport Ittehad, said 85 percent of all public transport vehicles in the city – including buses and mini-buses – run on CNG.
“First the government focused on converting vehicles to CNG during the 2000s because of its environment-friendly policy. The government also thought that the usage of CNG would reduce the import of petrol and diesel,” he explained.
“But now it has failed to provide CNG to public transport vehicles,” he added.
“It is not only causing immense problems for the commuters but also inflicting losses to the transporters.”
Afridi said 70 percent of public transport vehicles stay of the roads during CNG closure days.
The Sui Southern Gas Company had announced that CNG would be suspended on three alternative days a week as per the gas load management schedule.
But it suspends the CNG supply for another 24 hours with any announcement.
Transporters and civic rights activists said that unannounced extension of closure of CNG stations for more 24 hours have been intensifying the problems of the commuters.
Zahid Farooq, a civic rights activist associated with the Urban Resource Center, believes that the government has badly failed to resolve the transport issue of the city.
“Karachi, a city of more than 20 million people, is an industrial hub and a port city with a larger commuting public than any other city in the country. But the government has largely ignored its transportation system,” he said.
The day when the CNG supply is suspended, many citizens can be seen waiting at bus stops in the city. “Rickshaws and taxis, and even mini-buses plying on LPG gas, charge excessive fares,” Farooq told The News.
However, Afridi said that some individuals charge extra and it was the transporters association’s decision.
The transporters say that bus and mini-buses cannot be converted back to diesel after the CNG conversion.
“Some transporters have been plying their buses using LPG on the CNG suspension days,” said Rab Nawaz Ustad, the owner of the Marwat Coach route.
“Traffic police have been imposing fines on buses and mini-buses for allowing commuters to sit on rooftops but because of the shortage of buses, passengers forcibly climb onto the rooftops despite the drivers and conductors telling them not to do so,” he added.
Prominent urban planners Arif Hasan and Mansoor Raza in their recent report, “Karachi: the transport crises”, termed the days when there was CNG closure as unusual days.
“The unusual days are those when the city closed down because of strike calls or the blocking of roads because of demonstrations, by various political, religious and ethnic parties and groups,” the report said, maintaining that on normal days a combination of bus and rickshaw is used while 48.7 percent commuters do not go to work on unusual days.
Officials in the provincial transport department admitted that the issue was adversely affecting the citizens.
“The issue of CNG suspension is a federal issue and the provincial authorities have nothing to do with it,” said an official.
He said the provincial government had raised the issue with the federal government but the latter’s response was simple - acute shortage of CNG.