DAWN MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2000
Moneylenders & encroachers
In the Saddar area of Karachi, encroachers pay Rs 110 million per month in a 1 1/2 sq km area as bhatta to the police, writes Arif Hasan
K arachi has 14,854 intra-city busen; all owned by private operators. stors. In In addition, it has 513 inter-city buses as well. The government transport company, the Karachi Transport Corporation (KTC), which had 800 buses, was closed down last becanase it was running at a perpetual lom. There are also 13,613 taxis and taxis and 23,337 rickshaws in the city.
placed on According to figures given by the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) to the URC, 72 per cent of all commuters using buses travel by Karachi’s 8,773 minibuses. Of these, 3,800 are functioning without route permits since a ban was is them in 1986 after a college girl had been run over by a minibus. The incident was fol lowed by student riots. The government wanted to replace the minibuses by big buses but because of the manner in which buses are purchased and operated in the Karachi, this was not possible.
The minibuses are owned by individuals Their actual price is around one million rupees each. They are purchased mostly by people belonging to the northern districts of Pakistan, through moneylenders, most of whom also come from the same area. There whom also come from the are around ten to twenty such moneylen ders. In the last fourteen years, these moneylenders have financed 6,350 buses at an approximate cost of 6 billion rupee. The purchaser of the bus has to pay back Rs 3 to 4 million in monthly instalments to the moneylender over a period of three to four If he defaults on an instalment, the years. If he hus is taken away from him and whatever payment he has made is forfeited. The papers of the bus remain in the name of the moneylender. All money lenders have close links with the police and as such the buses can violate all traffic rules and regulations, These buses provide an extremely cheap mode of transport where the maximum fare is no more than Rs 5 to 7. Larger buses are far too expensive for the purchasers to buy and operate and their fares would have to he much higher (and perhaps unaffordable to commuters), to break even. y cheap
These e minibuses, along with other vately owned buses, have no bus terminals, workshops or depots. All these activities are performed on the road and around these ad hoc facilities a services sector to transport develops along with hawkers, eat ing places, entertainment, toilets, and other facilities that cater to the operators and to the transit population. As a result, road and pavement areas, sometimes as high as 90 per cent of road space, in important loca etimes as high as 90
tions and nodes in Karachi, have been encroached upon and are used for these facilities. The However, cubes These These ese encroachments cause huge traffic jama and large-scale environmental degradation. They also cause disputes among residents, shopkeepers, hawkers and transporters. Most of the downmarket environmental degradation in Karachi is the result of the above-mentioned factors However, in spite of these drawbacks, the minibus operators are able to serve inacces sible katchi abadis and villages around Karachi, and areas where road conditions are deplorable. No government or private companies would ever be able to do this. The minibus operators have an organiza
Understanding Karachi
tion known as the Mini Bus Drivers Association which is a part of the Transport Ittehad. These organiza Karachi tions have constantly. lobbied the government for building. transport termi nals, workshops and depots and have also offered to make an invest ment in their development However, very little aterialized has mate materia Meanwhile, minibus owners pay an average of around Rs 3,000 per month as bhatta to the police and other agencies. that inne to use they can they can continue the roads the purposes of depots and workshops and continue to viodate traf fic rules and regulations. Thus, the minibus es alone pay about Rs 26.5 million informal ly to govertanent agencies per month while the inter-city buses pay an additional sum of over Rs13 million
The URC has held a number of forums since 1994 on transport- related issues. It has tried to understand the problems of the transporters and has attempted to create a space where they and the official agencies could interact. A similar attempt has been made by the Traffic Engineering Bureau (TEB) of the KDA and as a result of these attempts certain developments have taken (TEI
Arif Hasan related activities. The major prob lem regarding the Karachi transport situation is how organise a trans port system since each bus is not only individual Iy owned, but sometimes has more than one owner In addition, the design of the minibus is inappro priate nd uncom-able for pas sengers, It is time-consum ing to get on and off minibus, and one cannot stand erect inside. No attendue cant No attempts have been made to
place which are described later in the text. The goverrunent also owns ten large plots to the of land which originally belonged to the KTC and which were used as its dep depots and workshops. After the winding up of the KTC, these were to be sold to pay off ICTC’s dues and to offer a golden handshake to its employees. SHEHRI has gone to court to prevent the sale of these plots so that they may be used for depots and workshops. A neighbourhood organization, where one such plot was located, also went to court to pre vent its land use being changed. Because of this pressure, the Sindh Governor has decided that these plots will not be sold but will be used for transport
Planning and Reforms for the Future
design the buses more appropriately. Almost all encroachments in key loca tions in Karachi are related to the transport trade. These encroachers, hawkers, beggars and push cart operators pay bhatta to the civic agencies and the police so that they may carry on their busine esses. According to a URC survey, in one and a hali sq km in the Saddar area, encroachers pay Rs 110 million per month. In the Les Market arve, the figure is Rs 54 million.
Karachi’s transport system is very inex pensive and does fur Busel easily available. However, because of congestion, discomfort and the unorganized environ
ment surrounding it, commuters get tired, their clothes get crumpled and dirty and their shoes los lose their polish. Many travel with an extra shirt and have their shoes pol ished by shoeshine boys before entering their offices. Due to these factors, many offices arrange for a pick and drop van for their staff. Also, middle-middle-income neighbourhoods organise on a cooperative hasis to hire a contract carrier which picks them up, p. drops drops them them to to work and brings them back. Sunski vans are also arranged by the garment industry to transport their female workers to and from work. The scale of this activity has not been calculan ed but is considerable and caters to tens of thousands of commuters.
Bus routes were last rationalized in Karachi in 1972. After that, new routes have been added but a rational network which is in keeping with Karachi’s spatial spread has not been developed. If the routes are rationalized, a more convenient and speedier network, which would ease traffic traffic flows flows as well, especially through Saddar, could be developed.
Other Esues Related to Traffic Karachi’s traffic is the main cause of air
and noise pollution in the city. Noise levels in Central Karachi vary between a mini-mam of 72 to a maximum of 110 Decibels, School children in the Saddar area have lead levels of up to 0.38 mg/l and traffic police at a typical Karachi crossing have average lead levels of 0.45 mg/l in their blood. Various attungus have been made by the Environmental Protection Agency and the police, with the help of citizen’s groups, to rectify to rectify this state of affairs. However, these attempts have not mer with much success The transporters claim that they can only maintain their buses if their fares are increased. In addition, they right-ly claim that they make huge payments to the police and that the fuel that they get is adulterated and produces pollution,
But, there are other problems related to traffic as well. Karachi has 513 inter-city buses. These huses abs do not have termi nals, workshops or depots for their use. Many of them individually owned. Many of these owners live in the congested inner inn city or in the katchi abadis. They park their buses next to their homes. The rest are parked on various roads within ity. Depending on their destination, inter city buses pay up to Rs 25,000 pes month as bhatta to the government agen cies so that they can continue to operate and use road space for parking and mainte nance purposes. Along with the minibuses, a major source of traffic conges tion in Karachi. Logically, Karachi should have three intercity bus terminals, one each on the roads connecting the city to other parts of the country. Space for these be made available since there are a large number of government-owned spen spaces on the exits from the city.
Karachi’s roads are in a bad condition. They need simple repairs. The state on the other hand insists on digging them up and remaking them, with the result that only a very small amount of road space is rehabili rased.
In addition, all pavements in the inner city are encroached upon and as such peo ple are forced to walk on the roads. In the rest of the city, pavements do not exist. Where paid parking has been organised, mainly due to the efforts of the Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC), and con trols enforced, conditions have improved considerably. However, such areas are all middle income retail shopping areas. All middle-income to be done for planning in Karachi seems to be d the automobile and the pedestrian is com pletely ignored. The recent roundabout developments planned by the TEB are an exception to this rule.
What the Karachi transporters say
The Karachi Transport Ittehad has, on a number of occasions, identified the problems of its members and of transport more generally, in the city of Karachi. The Ittehad is an important and vocal partner in the city and has time and again come up with numerous solutions and suggestions to deal with Karachi’s trans port problems. Here we present some of the issues which they identify and some solutions.
built at short distances, which cause substantial wear and tear of buses and other vehicles. Many roads are permanently inundated with water or sewage, while most ruads are at some time or the other, dug up by different util by different utility companies, all adding to prob lems of the maintenance of vehicles. vehicles. There is a is a perpetual plaint by transporters of all modes of transport, that the oil they are getting is impure, which not only affects the performance of vehicles, but is also one reason for the excessive pollution in the city. Unless better quality oil and petrol are provided, the problem of pollution will persist. Adulterating oil is a big business Karachi, and informal factories produce it and then package and in ners. Other problems that affect is city, market it in brand same containerffect the prodents of this city, transporters in Karachi, and pertain to some of the following issues (1) Previous governments used to pay some compensation (50 per cent) of the market price of a vehicle if it had been burnt or damaged by violence in the city. The present government, despite the loss of between cleven to rwelve thousand vehicles in the last two years, has refused to veen the CBR and pay any compensation. (i) an arrangich the latter used the bus-owners used to exist by the latter used to pay income tax according to a mutually agreed formula. However, income tax officials constantly harass busowners asking them for far more money than that based on the previous agreement. (ii) permanent bane in the life of bus drivers, implicating them in Just as the income tax officials harass bus-owners, the police are a numerous effences in order to n order to collect excessive bribes Magistrates are also involved in this extortion and and collect larg amounts of money from bus drivers. (iv) Karachi’s bus fares are 70 per cent of those in the Punjab, even though the prices of parts, oil and petrol are the same all across the country, and nd there is a need to rationalise these fare structures acre Large all cities of the country.
The free transport policy, under which any individual can ply a vehicle on any any route is believed to have destroyed the entire transport system of the c em of the country, and much Imuch of the investment has come to a halt in Karachi on account of this policy. The transport sector has only recently been given the status of an industry, which is also said to be one reason why facilities have not improved in the past. Transporters claim that they have no access to bank loans or to insurance facilities. Transport companies con stitute only 5 per cent of all private transporters individual own like drivers, conductors, time keepers, etc., constitute the remaining 95 per cont
Transporters feel that there is complete negligence by the administration regarding the allocation of land the construc tion of a bus terminal. The lack of a bus terminus and proper parking facilities for buses, lead to the occupation of vacant plots of land to be used as parking and sarvicing areas for buses. The requested to be allowed to either rent or buy in easy sporters req instalments, the depots of the depors of the Karachi Transport Corporation which are to be auctioned off, but their request was ignored. The two large bus terminals that existed in the city at PIB Colony and Paposhnagar were both built by the transporters them selves, and not by the government. However, the Paposhnagar vacant land on which the terminal existed, has been converted into a market. Once these available vacant plots are built upen, the transporters are are left left with no alternative for both the parking
and servicing of their vehicles. Roads in Karachi are in a dismal state, with speed breakers 1998).
(Source: Urban Rocurce Centre: Surveys and studies on Truugourt, 19981
These are excerpts from Understanding Karachi: Planning and Reform for the Future by Arif Hasan with assistance from Munammad Younus and S.Akbar Zaidi. 180 pp. Rs 295. ISBN 969-8380-28-0. Published by City Press, 316 Madina City Mall Abdullah Haroon Road, Saddar, Karachi 74400 Tel: 92-21-5650623. Email: city press@email.com Website: www.pakdata.com/a