Commuters suffer as CNG Metro buses disappear

CNG buses of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) Green Metro Bus Service have almost disappeared from the route -- Kaimari to Pakistan Steel's residential area Gulshan-e-Hadeed via Shahrah-e-Faisal. This had created anger and frustration among a large number of the commuters; mostly travelling for their jobs and education. With fleet of 35 buses, this service was launched on the very busy and long route about three years back by then Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah. He had also announced that the number of these buses would be increased soon.
This was very good news for the commuters who had suffered a lot due to single private inter-city coach service, Muslim Coach, on the route. They were happy to get better transport service. After a few weeks, the government awarded contract for these buses to a group of influential people. To the bad luck of the passengers, within next few months, the contractors sub-contracted the buses to the divers and conductors.
According to the agreement, for each trip the contractors would get Rs 2200. The drivers and conductors were asked to bear the bill of CNG also and to earn their wages in addition to the payment to the contractors. These drivers and conductors virtually became owners of these government buses. They started violating all traffic rules and the rights of the passengers to multiply their daily earnings.
This, all of sudden, dropped the quality of the service, which included over-loading, picking the passengers without designated stops, taking long time to complete journey, and allegedly rough behaviour of the drivers and conductors with the passengers. The situation worsened as the contractors have raised their demand for a trip to Rs 3100, against Rs 2200. Most of the drivers and conductors refused to run the buses for the reason that they were not earning that much amount. It was not feasible for them to continue.
Of 35 buses, hardly ten are on the route; with a gap of one hour. Instead of three trips earlier, now a bus makes only one in a day. The theory prevailed that after cutting short the number and trips, a CNG bus would get a good number of passengers and would earn according the wishes of the contractors but the situation is otherwise, the conductors told APP. "If the contractors did not revise and demanded fewer amounts for each trip, the remaining buses would also be removed from the route after Ramazan," they said.