Transporters’ grievances to be redressed, says Basharat

LAHORE: Punjab Minister for Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Local Government Raja Basharat has vowed to redress public grievances at General Bus Stand, Badamibagh and said in future the revenue earned from the bus stands would be spent on their uplift.

He was addressing a reception as chief guest given by the administration and All Pakistan Transport Owners Association (APTOA) at General Bus Stand on Wednesday. The reception was also attended among others by the Minister for Transport Punjab Jehanzeb Khan Khichi, Commissioner Lahore Division, Deputy Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner and other officers from departments concerned.

Earlier, a briefing was presented on the issues and available resources. Raja Basharat regretted that former government did nothing to solve problems despite earning a handsome revenue amounting Rs 900 million annually from the general bus stands. The AC City told the minister that a plan was under way to computerise all systems of tax collection and ticketing.

The Minister for Local Government said, “We are not masters rather we are public servants as envisioned by Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief Minister Punjab Usman Buzdar. We believe in serving people sincerely instead of enchanting rhetoric slogans”.

Raja Basharat directed for preparing comprehensive PC-I to cover all needed development works at bus stand. He also directed for removing the reservations of transporters regarding overcharging, parking fee, Parchi fee and undue challans. The president of APTOA showed gratitude to the ministers for visiting the bus stand and listening to their problems sympathetically.

Capacity building training: Deputy Inspector General of Police (Operations Wing) Ashfaq Khan has directed the officers concerned to arrange capacity building based training programmes and briefings of the officers and officials of judicial wing on regular basis to improve and strengthen the present’s transportation and guard mechanism of under trial prisoners of different cases.

He stated this while presiding over a review meeting regarding the improvement in transportation system and provision of judicial guards for the under-trial prisons of NAB and other judicial as well as criminal cases.

SSP Operations Lahore Ismail Kharak, SP Security Faysal Shahzad, SP Headquarters Syed Karar Hussain, SP Mujahid Asad Ul Rahman, DSPs of Judicial, Guards, Umar Company and Police Lines along with Reserve Inspectors and related Reporting Officers (Muharrars) attended the meeting. SP Headquarters Syed Karar Hussain briefed the meeting regarding the transportation process, provision of guards and Elite police officials for the under trial prisoners from differential prisons of Lahore to relevant courts and their safe return to these prisons. He also informed the meeting regarding the system of transportation of ailing prisoners in any emergency situations to the hospitals from the prisons following the adopted SOPs. DIG Operations Ashfaq Khan directed the SSP Operations Lahore, SP Security and SP Headquarters to monitor the duties of judicial guards at different courts, Bakhshi Khanas and hospitals. Ashfaq Khan assured the meeting that concrete measures would be taken to fulfill the lack of human resource and provide maximum resources to the Judicial Wing of Lahore Police. He directed the officers concerned not to transfer the officials and officers of judicial wing without any sound reason.