Transporters told to reduce fares after POL price cut, Sharjeel tells PA

Letters have been sent by the relevant provincial authorities to the operators of public transport services in Sindh to reduce passenger fares after the latest reduction in the prices of petroleum products in the country.

The information to this effect was provided to the Sindh Assembly by Sindh Information and Transport Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon on Friday as he responded to a call-attention notice of woman lawmaker of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan Rana Ansar.

Speaking on her call-attention notice, the lawmaker lamented that people had to face an unbearable increase in the prices of essential products. She stated that operators of the public transport carriers had not decreased the fares following the reduction in petroleum prices, adding that the inflation had been increasing without any checks.

Responding to the call-attention notice, Memon said the provincial authorities had recently checked the fares of inter-city transport services in the province on the occasion of Eidul Fitr to save the exploitation of passengers on the festive occasion.

He explained that due to the prompt action by provincial transport officials, operators of buses had to return the excess fares they had received from the passengers. He told the House that letters had been sent to all the representative associations of the transporters in the province telling them to reduce the fares after the decrease in the prices of petroleum products.

The transport minister said the Sindh government would also take other necessary measures to provide due relief to the people in this regard.

Memon recalled on the occasion that the Sindh government had earlier ensured that there was no increase in the fares of buses of the Peoples Bus Service due to the increase in the prices of petroleum products and for that, an enormous subsidy was paid by the government.

Responding to another call-attention notice, the transport minister assured the House that the Sindh government would ensure interconnectivity of the services of the Green Line and Orange Line sections of the bus rapid transit (BRT) system operational in the city.

He said the provincial government had also approached the Centre for getting control of the federal Sindh Infrastructure Development Company Ltd that ran the Green Line BRT in Karachi.

Meanwhile, the House was assured that action would be taken against the controllers of examinations of the educational boards concerned for the use of unfair means by candidates appearing in the ongoing Secondary School Certificate Annual Exams in the province.

The assurance to this effect was given by Sindh Minister for Boards and Universities Ismail Rahoo while responding to a point of order on this issue raised by Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal MPA Syed Abdul Rasheed.