Sharjeel hints at slashing or withdrawing subsidy for Peoples Bus Service

The Sindh government may curtail or altogether withdraw the subsidy it has been constantly paying to reduce the passenger fare of the Peoples Bus Service in Karachi and other urban centres in the province to arrange finances for purchasing more buses.

Sindh Senior Minister for Information and Transport, Sharjeel Inam Memon disclosed this on Thursday while talking to media persons at the Karachi Press Club (KPC). He came to the KPC to meet and greet its newly elected governing body. Answering a question, he said the discount was offered to the passengers of the Peoples Bus Service because of the subsidy paid by the provincial government. He said the subsidy could be reduced as the government hadn’t been receiving high passenger fares.

“We have proposed to the government to either slash or withdraw this subsidy. The money to be saved by this move would be used to purchase more buses,” he said. Memon told media persons that the Sindh government had decided to purchase more electric buses for Karachi whose operations are environment friendly. He informed media persons that up to 100,000 passengers had been using the Peoples Bus Service daily. He said the government paid a subsidy up to Rs50 per passenger daily for the Peoples Bus Service.

He said the government had been constructing Red Line and Yellow Line sections of the Bus Rapid Transit service in Karachi. The senior transport minister said he had been chairing meetings daily to launch an electric tax service in Karachi. He said a pink taxi service for woman passengers would also be launched. A pink electric scooter facility will also be launched to further empower women in Sindh, and a policy would be adopted in this regard in the coming few days.

Memon said the government had been expeditiously working to improve and expand the road network in Sindh. He claimed that apart from the federally built and maintained highways in the province, the rest of the road networks in the province were relatively in a better position. He said the number of users of the newly inaugurated first phase of Shaheed Bhutto (Malir) Expressway in Karachi had been on the rise. He said the expressway would be completely built with 39 kilometres in length by December this year. He said that a link road had also been built in Karachi.

He said the Sindh government of the Pakistan Peoples Party had initiated one of the biggest housing projects in global history involving the construction of 2.1 million houses for the people affected by the past floods. Memon claimed that the best network of public health facilities was present in Sindh as compared to any other part of Pakistan.

Responding to a question about the fresh amendment to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act-2016, he said the PPP fully supported the right to free speech in the country but a mechanism should be adopted against elements involved in spreading lies to taint the image of Pakistan.

To another question, he said talks should continue between the government and the opposition as every issue in the country could be resolved through negotiations. He noted that no one took to the streets for agitation when the founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was recently handed down punishment.

He said no such agitation even took place anywhere in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where the PTI was in power. He lamented that important installations like Radio Pakistan, and GHQ had been attacked, buses and ambulances were torched, and other violent incidents involving arson had occurred when Imran Khan had been arrested on May 9m 2023. He said people had been provoked to revolt in the national institutions in the past when the PTI founder was imprisoned. He said the PTI and its founder had to be held accountable for these acts.

Memon assured the media persons that the PPP had the utmost resolve to protect and ensure the welfare of the journalists. Answering another question, he said Murad Ali Shah was the most hard-working and smart chief minister in the country who had been working day and night for the development of Sindh. He said speculations about the change of the CM in Sindh were completely baseless. He said Murad Ali Shah should continue serving Sindh.