KARACHI: Despite 13 per cent reduction in petroleum, oil & lubricant (POL) prices, the public transporters in metropolis have rejected the government’s demand of slashing 20 per cent fares.
The Sindh Transport Department has issued a notification to all transporters for reducing fares by 20 percent after reduction in petroleum prices. However, the transporters said that the public transport vehicles were operating on CNG and their prices were still same.
Karachi Transport Ittehad President Irshad Bukhari said that the most of the public buses used CNG but their fares were calculated on the basis of diesel consumption. He said there had been no change in CNG prices so it was unlikely that the transporters would follow the government’s directive for fare reduction.
However, he said, an emergency meeting of transporters’ organisations had been called on Friday (today) to discuss the matter further.
According to the notification issued by the transport department, the fare for air-conditioned coaches and HiAce vans has been decreased to Rs1.40 per kilometre, while the rate of non-air-conditioned vehicles has decreased from 82 paisas per kilometre to 75 paisas.
According to an agreed-upon formula of gradual decrease in fares up to 20 percent between the government and transporters as mentioned in the notification, there will be an eight percent reduction in goods’ transport fares to help decrease the prices of daily commodities such as edible items.
