KARACHI: The Karachi transporters’ association on Sunday announced to operate their vehicles in the city from Monday.
Karachi Transport Alliance (KTA) president announced resuming inter-city bus service from May 18, saying that they held several meetings with Sindh Transport Minister Syed Awais Qadir Shah, but the provincial government didn’t fulfil its promise of resuming public transport before Eid.
“We stopped our operations at the request of the Sindh transport minister. Despite several assertions, the Sindh govt did not allow us to resume public transport because of which we are suffering huge losses,” the KTA president said.
On the other hand, Hyderabad transporters’ held a protest at Badin bus stand and chanted slogans against the Sindh govt for not allowing to resume inter-district bus service.
The transporters’ said that they will resume public transport as many people wanted to return back to their families before Eid.
They maintained that several provinces had allowed restoring public transport, but Sindh had not budged in favour of public transporters.
On Saturday, the Sindh transport minister had announced the resumption of public transport in the province before or after Eid without giving a specific date.
In a statement, the provincial transport minister had said that SOPs for public transport have been prepared and medical teams are being constituted for help as well.
A four-point summary has been prepared and forwarded to the chief minister to provide relief to the transporters in Sindh in this regard, the statement said.
The summary recommends a 100 per cent withdrawal of fine slapped by the transport department on transporters in the province from February this year till June as well as a 50 per cent relief to transporters in excise duty.
It may be mentioned here that the Sindh government put a ban on all kind of public transport services in the third week of March before the lockdown was formally imposed on March 23.
