Waiting for hours for insufficient and poorly maintained buses has become a matter of routine for the common citizens who have to deal with this problem day in and day out, which has been compounded by the suspension of wagon services in the city.
Only 300 poor condition buses are being run in the city to cater to the needs of nearly 9 million people. Talking to APP on Monday, a factory employee said, “I have been waiting for the bus for almost an hour. Walking seems to be a more practical option than waiting for a bus.” “Who will take the pain to resolve the problems we are facing on roads? We are living in a country where the state provides facilities only to the wealthy ones,” regretted Awais, Waqas and other daily commuters.
Common people cannot afford to hire taxi or rickshaw daily to reach their destinations and the mismanagement by the private companies is adversely affecting their routine life. The Punjab government has already closed a number of wagons on many routes, causing an acute shortage of public transport in the city. Students Shahid, Subhan and Usman said that private bus operators do not have the required number of vehicles which leads to overcrowding. They demanded that all the poorly-maintained buses be repaired as commuters had to face immense inconvenience if such vehicles break down in the middle of a journey. Sarfraz Asad, serving in a government department, criticised the poor role of Lahore Transport Company (LTC) formed under the chief minister’s initiative to provide transport facilities to Lahoris. “The LTC has done nothing to provide a trouble-free transport facility to the general public,” he added.
Amjad Ali, spokesman of LTC told APP that only 300 buses were operational in the provincial capital and 250 buses had been declared ill-fit for roads. He said the Punjab government would give financial assistance for the maintenance and reconditioning of sub- standard buses and a policy would be made to provide funds transparently. “The overall number of buses in the city is very low but more buses will be brought soon from China,” he added.
