“If my minibus driver is late by only 60 to 180 seconds, he is charged Rs 100 by the Adda administration,” said Rashid Janjua on Sunday. Janjua’s three minibuses ply the western and southern parts of Karachi covering Baldia and Saddar towns. “This forces the drivers to speed, which sometimes results in fatal road accidents,” Janjua said while talking about causes of accidents in Karachi, one of most populous and accident-prone cities of the world. He said a charge is paid on the start and end of the route in case of a delay and it is called ‘jurmana’ or fine. Most cases of road accidents on the thoroughfares of the metropolitan are related to minibuses and coaches, followed by dumpers.
The latest occurred three weeks ago when a speeding coach ran over a woman and her son at the Guru Mandir intersection of the MA Jinnah Road. The coach was set ablaze by an angry mob.
“It’s uncontrollable because of the administration or regulators who have their own approach of running the affairs of public transport in the private sector,” said Karachi Transport Ittehad (KTI) spokesman Ashraf Banglori. He admitted that there is no other way to regulate such a big transport network as the regulators have to consider everyone plying their buses, minibuses and coaches. Moreover, the competition is among those who run their transport at lucrative routes from the western, southern, eastern and northern parts with focal point at Saddar, said Banglori.
According to data compiled by the Road Traffic Injury Research and Prevention Centre, public transport has been held responsible for 46 percent of road traffic mortalities in the metropolis to an average per annum.
The centre – a public-private partnership of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) and NED University of Engineering and Technology – collects data of the JPMC, AKUH, Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, Civil Hospital Karachi and Liaquat National Hospital.
According to the centre’s data, the number of fatalities and injuries caused by public transport increased from 7 percent in 2009 to 24 percent in 2010 and 18 percent in 2009 to 22 percent in 2010, respectively.
However, the motorcycle continues to be the vehicle most involved in accidents, that is, up to 57 percent.
The data specified that motorcycle riders and pillion riders constitute the highest number of road casualties, that is, 55 percent of the total casualty data, followed by pedestrians covering 25 percent.
The menace is not confined to Karachi alone, but practiced on long routes also, like Karachi to Hyderabad, Thatta or Badin.
“Fines on long routes are much higher, between Rs 400 and Rs 500 per one-way transportation of commuters,” Banglori pointed out.
Interestingly, all the fines are collected by private regulators who own the ‘Transport Adda’, without paying any tax and are even involved in land grabbing as per their own discretion without fear of any official interference.
“It is very easy. Just go and occupy a plot and park 10 to 20 vehicles and later increase them and you are the owner of the land,” said another KTI office-bearer.
Transporters have even arranged a crosscheck formula for the timings of passage of minibuses by hiring ‘volunteers’ at every stop to check the movement of minibuses of the respective routes.
“I have to just give a token of Rs 5 to every notified minibus or coach as a guarantee for covering a certain route in a certain time,” said Jamshed Khan, a young timekeeper at the Merewether Tower, one of the busiest bus stops of the city.
