Plan Being Made to Convert Buses to CNG

There is a dire need of plying at least 1,500 CNG buses on the city routes to make the environment pollution free as diesel-fuelled buses have been creating serious environment concerns for a long time in the provincial metropolis.

While talking to The News, official sources in the Transport department said that the government was devising a strategy to convert all the diesel-run buses to CNG-run ones, and for that purpose the government had already opened bid and called the transport owners to participate in the project as they would be given 25 per cent subsidy on the purchase of the CNG buses.

The sources said that the provincial government would carry out the project in the whole of Punjab and almost 3,000 CNG buses would be brought on the major city routes in this regard. They said that the government would not succumb to the pressure of the transport owners for any further increase in the fares of the public transport vehicles. They said that the government had already increased fares twice in the same year and by increasing the fares again, the government would not add to the troubles of the people.

On Tuesday, the transport owners had started receiving extra fares in the as the government increased the price of diesel by Rs 3.50 per litre while the provincial government had fixed Rs 12 on the first stage according to the fares list.However, there were many instances in which wrangling occurred between the transport owners and the commuters in the city as the former charged Rs 15 on the first stage while referring to the increase in the diesel price.

While talking to The News, the representatives of the Urban Transport Union said that the treatment of the government towards the transport owners was not fair, as it had already stopped subsidy given to them due to the unprecedented rise in the diesel price.The said the government had also fixed the fares of the public transport vehicles without considering the financial problems of the transport owners.

PTA secretary Chaudhry Muhammad Iqbal while talking to The News said that the provincial government had been making efforts to provide quality transportation to the masses while taking requirements of environment into consideration as the diesel-fuelled buses cause pollution. To a question whether the PTA would increase the fares as the transport owners were demanding it in the wake of up to 6.2 per cent (Rs 3.50 per litre) hike in the prices of the diesel, he said the provincial government would not make the masses suffer while increasing the fares according to the wishes of the transport owners.

He said that the PTA had already enhanced the fares of the public transport vehicles twice in a year since the prices of petroleum products had seen an unprecedented hike in the international oil market. The PTA would not increase the fares of the public transport vehicles unless the government had to raise the diesel prices for meeting the financial gap.

He said that the government was mulling to change all the existing diesel-run transport vehicles into the CNG ones in a bid to create a healthy environment. He said that there were 22 routes in the city where the public transport vehicles were not being plied and the Transport department had asked the transport owners to bring new buses for these routes.He said there were six transport owners, who had shown willingness to ply new buses on these routes. While talking about the over-charging of fares by the transport owners, he said that the government would not show any laxity to punish those transport owners who were over-charging on the city routes.

He said that special teams were formed to check the fares being charged from the commuters by the transport owners on different routes and the department had fined a large number of the transport owners over violation of the fares list, which had already been fixed by the officials of the department. Over the issue of the purchase of the CNG buses by the transport owners, he said that the provincial government would give 25 per cent subsidy to the transport owners and the rest of the amount would be paid by them and the provincial government would not make any other financial arrangements for the transport owners.