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Tragedy and Hope
Tragedy: Over Loaded Public Transport
Tragedy is an event that causes great sadness as stated by
philosophers. Aristotle
stated tragedy as the imitation of an action that is serious and
also as having
magnitude, complete in itself." He continues, "Tragedy is a form
of drama exciting
the emotions of pity and fear. Its action should be single and
complete, presenting a
reversal of fortune, involving persons renowned and of superior
attainments, and it
should be written in poetry embellished with every kind of
artistic expression."
As we all know that Pakistan is one the developing nations of
south East Asia. One
of the many challenges the country is facing nowadays is of
social problems. We like
to grab your attention towards a social problem that is Death
causing which is
Overloading of people on the public transport.
The overloading of vehicles is most common seen images on the
roads of the country
from Islamabad to Karachi. People sit on the roof and hangs on
the sides of the
vehicles. This is quiet dangerous for both of the passengers on
the bus as well as
people who are travelling on the roads. These vehicle drivers
put the lives of many
people in danger.
Causes:
In the Provincial capital there is a challan on the overloading
but these vehicle
drivers have found another way to overload, the drivers try to
get a challan for
anything first time in the morning and then they start
overloading their vehicles
because there is no system of a challan over a challan and this
problem of the system
is exploited by these vehicle drivers. The major percentages of
people who are
bound to endanger their lives are the college students and the
poor ones. There are
fewer amounts of buses which are running on different
routes.
RTA (Regional Transport Authority) Inspector Yousaf Rafiqui
says, "Four people in
Lahore check route permit, frequency and overloading of buses
but the truth is that
transporters don't run the agreed number of buses." Decidely, a
staff of four people
is not sufficient to perform the job well.
According to an estimate of RTA, New Khan Metro Bus is running
100 to 150 buses
out of the promised 260, Premier Bus Service is running around
190 out of 246 buses,
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BHK Transport Service 27 out of 44, Niazi Express Bus is running
30 out of 52,
Makks Metro is running 12-20 out of 40 buses, Baloch Transport
Company is
running 10-12 out of 22. So the shortage of buses is posing
serious problem to
commuters.
According to the advertisements given by RTA in newspapers on
March 14, 2006, 36
routes buses were required on route B-34 but 16 permits were
given to the concerned
bus company, 22 buses were required for B-38 but only 11 buses
got route permit
and 34 buses were required for B-20 but only 22 buses were
registered.
Transporters say they are running into losses with the existing
fares and diesel rate.
They want subsidy from government to improve their business
viability.
These drivers know that on weekends and on special occasions
such as eid or any
gusseted holiday there is a greater number of passengers who
travel on these days
they take advantage of this situation and try to overload their
vehicle with as manypassengers as they can.
Solutions:
Now we would like give you some solutions of this problem
1: Traffic education:
The government should try to start a traffic education system in
which they
will teach the people about the traffic rules. This should be
for both drivers and for
the passengers.
2: Substitutes:
On the rush routes where there are fewer busses CNG rickshaws
and motor
cycle rickshaws should be given routes.
3: Millage meter:
All the rickshaws will be installed with a millage meter and the
rate should be
set by the government.
4: Awareness Campaign:
Government should support these solutions by running campaign on
the
electronic media and billboards.
