Killing the already flailing Public Transportation system in Karachi
Most of the buses in Karachi are operated on CNG as it is a much cheaper fuel compared to Diesel. During non-availability of CNG most bus owners prefer not to run their buses, as running them on diesel would translate into huge losses for them. This causes shortage of buses in the city and people are left stranded on bus stops as most have no alternatives, unlike car owners who can switch over to petrol when the shutdown is enforced.
A smarter solution for this problem would be to designate a few CNG stations that are allowed to refuel Buses, during these shutdowns. The government could deploy officials at these CNG stations, aided by policemen, to make sure no private car gets to fill CNG at these stations. This would provide much needed relief to the people of Karachi, while still allowing the government to achieve its Natural Gas saving goals.
Public transportation unlike cars is not a luxury but a necessity and the government should make sure the common man is not deprived of it.
Is it okay for the government to cripple Karachi's bus system?
Why this apathy?
I think it has a lot to do with government official who have never taken a bus in their lives. They do not understand the plight of the common man. What a regular Karachiite has to go through just to get to work. Heck I didn't care about it until I started taking the Bus.
I am sorry Saeed, I really dont know much about Karachi .. but from a general perspective , no matter what the halaat of Karachi , the provision of basic necessities of life should be of utmost priority to the government and the ruling party. I cannot imagine how individuals are suffering in such conditions ..
you are right and I agree fully closing out on the public transport is nothing short of cruelty, how do businesses expect their employees to come to work? how do ordinary people go about doing their day to day job when mobility is so limited , already the halat of the entire country are financially straining an ordinary citizen to the limit ..
When government announces shortage or non availability of Light, gas or any other amenities, I do not believe them at all. Either they are stealing it all, not planning it right, failing at creating emergency plans or just happy with the fact that the nation is suffering ...
I dont think there is ever going to be any solution to this unless the government takes serious responsibility for this ..
^
Lack of planning is the real problem. Once leaders over here get elected they don't bother to consult experts to solve the problems the country's facing, instead they use their own shoddy logic making matters worse.
Any half wit could tell you that, redirecting CNG from cars to buses is the solution to this crisis. This is Karachi, where the majority takes public transport to go get to work. And the government couldn't be bothered to do anything about this.
Private mini-vans?
We have mazda mini-buses with lots of decorations.
Nope they don't increase the fares, they just don't run all the buses in case of a CNG shutdown. Karachi doesn't have enough buses on normal days, the shutdowns seem like such treats when we turn from cattle to corn.
People were spilling out of the doors today. There was no empty spot on the door handles so I couldn't even hand outside the doorway.
Oh dude im in the same boat as yours the only difference is that Im living in Lahore and the traffic and the public transport sucks here.
They dont decrease the fares We pay double the amount of fares on every day including the days which have CNG available.....
I prefer go by Van cz they atleast take me as early and buses takes a alot of time....
And Due to the metro bus project almost half of the Lahore is being dug up...And Its going no where too in upcoming years I see even worse public transport in Lahore
Yeah. Cause it's cheaper. Diesel is sold at Rs 107 per litre whereas gas was sold at RS70 per Kg up until too weeks ago, now it's at Rs 30 per KG.
And you can get more miles in 1 kg of gas than a kg of diesel.
There nothing wrong with buses running on CNG, it's the cars(inefficient machines) that use it the most.
And yes there is no limit to the stupidity of our CM's vision
I mean he has started a CNG Bus project and we get proper CNG only on 3 days lol
This country is run my morons my friend. No one talks about these problems. Not Imran not Altaf. They were supposed to be the common man's representative.
So they slashed the price for CNG by half? Wow. That's unheard of in Pakistan.
But that reduction doesn't really help you when you can't get any CNG half of the time.
Yeah the Supreme Court intervened saying the government was taxing the commodity unfairly. I guess the government was making more money than the CNG station owners who were putting in the real work. What do you expect when the government has such a small tax pool.
But I don't hear any statements or suggestions from him. Not being in the government doesn't mean he can't talk about important issues. Or form pressure groups, to file a petition or something.
Need of CNG fuel is more than it produced or extracted daily. Natural gas is quite liberally used in Pakistani industry. Electrical power generation companies(KESC/etc) are also big consumer of it. 90% of public transport has converted to CNG system.
Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline can save energy crisis. Many of us consider that it would be cheaper to us, which is not true. Iran agreed to sell natural gas at the rate of 75% of international rate, plus our gov’t would also impose tax on it.
At the moment, gov’t is unable to regulate the prices of CNG, and most of the CNG stations are on strike. What would police do, if station is not purchasing fuel.
Either Iran or Central Asian gas resources can solve our problems in wider sense.
I'm talking about a fix that can be me made right now. Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline might not materialize for another 10 years. What we need right now is smart management of the rare but much needed resource. The common man is facing this problem right now and he's miserable.
