Metro Bus fare increased to Rs30

RAWALPINDI: The provincial cabinet has issued a notification to increase Metro Bus fare by Rs10 from Rs20 to Rs30 on Tuesday.

Punjab Mass Transit Authority (PMTA) senior officials told ‘The News’ that we have received government notification to increase Metro Bus fares in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Multan. A month back, Secretary Finance had already issued a written direction to increase Metro Bus fare by Rs10 but it delayed to implementation due to not issuing a proper notification by the Punjab government, the officials said.

They said that they have sent copy of the notification to all metro bus stations for its implementation.

Some two months back, Punjab Mass Transit Authority (PMTA) proposed an increase of Rs30 in the Metro Bus fare. The PMTA had sent a summary to the Punjab cabinet and requested an increase in the fare.

At that time, Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar had strongly opposed this proposal. The chief minister at that time said that the government did not want to put financial burden on public by increasing the charges.

After the hike in fares, the subsidy of metro bus will decrease by one and half billion annually. The Punjab government was providing subsidy of Rs9 billion annually on the metro bus.

Around 331000 passengers travel by metro buses in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Multan every day. The majority of passengers are students and working class people and they prefer metro bus service. The public has expressed serious concerns over the decision to increase the fare and demanded of Prime Minister Imran Khan to turn back the notification.