Enough land available for new bus terminals,minister tells PA

Claiming the provincial transport department has sufficient land in Karachi at its disposal, Sindh Minister for Transport Syed Nasir Hussain Shah told the Sindh Assembly on Friday that the land could easily be utilised to set-up modern bus terminals under the ongoing Karachi Mass Transit Programme.

The minister, however, stated that the government would make efforts to outsource the terminals’ management to private entities for improved services.

The potential plans were discussed by the provincial minister while responding to written and verbal queries of lawmakers pertaining to the transport department during the question hour session of the provincial assembly.

Bus terminals already being privately managed were also said to have been asked to provide all necessary facilities to commuters.

The transport minister further stated that the Regional Transport Authority had up till now used 133,795 route permits, while the provincial transport authority had issued 6,316 route permits to intra-city and inter-city bus services.

From 2008 till 2013, a total of 152,845 route permits for bus and other commercial vehicles were issued, generating a revenue of Rs216 million.

The transport minister said the annual fee for route permits was increased in 2015, whereas the entire process of issuing the permits was also computerised; permits were only to be issued to applicants possessing at least eight vehicles.

To a query directed at the defunct Sindh Road Transport Company’s land, Shah said the inoperative body had over six-acre land in the metropolis on which shops had been built, however, the land was yet to be allotted to anyone; such land in Sukkur had already given under the care of the provincial transport department, the minister observed.

He said the Sindh Home Department was approached to take action against illegal transfer or import of two, six and 12-seater rickshaws, or their outer bodies from Punjab to Sindh. Thousands of such rickshaws had, according to the minister, been confiscated by the government.

Sindh only allowed rickshaws with a seating capacity ranging from one to four passengers, the minister added.

Curtail time set for Fatehas

Earlier, all parliamentary parties in the Sindh Assembly unanimously consented to cutting down time allocated for offering Fatehas - essentially supposed to be held for eminent deceased personalities, but marred by inclusion of personalities the respective parties revered or considered martyrs - at the outset of every provincial assembly’s session in order to save time for general proceedings.

MPAs opined that the time allocated for the prayers needed to be shortened and that the prayers need not be unnecessarily politicised. 

Speaker Sindh Assembly Agha Siraj Durrani asked the leaders of all parliamentary parties in the provincial assembly to sit together and devise a strategy for the purpose.