CNG stations: non-supply of gas adds to the miseries of commuters

Non-supply of gas to compressed natural gas (CNG) stations for three days in a week has resulted in shortage of public transport on the city roads, thereby compounding the problems of commuters.
Although shortage of public transport and overloading of buses and mini buses in the city has become a matter of routine, particularly on those days when CNG stations remain closed either due to non-supply of CNG or because of political and religious parties' strikes, authorities seemed least interested in the plight of commuters.
Working women who are already facing immense difficulties in going to and from their workplaces due to unlawful occupation of their reserved compartment in public transport by male passengers are the worst sufferers.
Women passengers often complain that bus and mini bus drivers did not bother to stop their vehicles for them at bus stops as they usually prefer to fill their vehicles' women compartments with male passengers, thereby leaving hardly a few seats available for them. In such a situation, female passengers avoid to travel in those heavily occupied buses and mini buses for the fear of harassment, they added.
Female passengers deplored that although such `uncalled for' and illegal practice on the part of bus and mini bus drivers has become a matter of routine, traffic police did not bother to take any action against those openly flouting the law.
Moreover, rickshaw and taxi divers are fleecing commuters on the pretext of running their vehicles on petrol whenever CNG stations remain closed due to non-supply of CNG.
The non-availability of CNG often resulted in the shortage of public transport on the city's roads, thereby giving free hand to drivers of rickshaw and taxi to charge fare at their whim. .
Sources said that most of public transport go off the road whenever CNG stations are shut as almost 100 percent public transport have been running on CNG.
According to the load management plan of SSGC, gas supplies to the CNG stations in Karachi would remain suspended for three days in a week during winter.