As I had described in my early article about the history of Metro Bus which was firstly started in the Brazil in the year 1974. Now in this post i am judging the service and financial position of project.
Metro Bus started its service in the month of February 2013, and it is totally a project for the general public. This project is facilitating the residents of Lahore on daily basis and its services are satisfactory. The bus service starts at the 6:30 AM in the early in the morning to drop the people to their working position and destination and remains in the charge till 10:30 PM at evening without any pause. Every bus comes after a distance of 3 to 5 minute and currently about 45 buses are in the running position with a seating capacity of 120 to 140 passengers.
The E-Ticketing system has been introduced for the passengers so that system can be used for paying the traveling charges while passengers can also pay the fair by coupon after purchasing it from the Metro Bus Station. The installed machine charged for the fair and thus the need of bus conductor is vanished. The fair is yet Rs. 20 which was fixed early this year in the month of February. The passenger can left the bus on any of the stop and has to pay only Rs. 20, it means that if a passenger starts his/her journey from form Gajumata and left any where till the last station i.e. Shahdara he/she has to pay the same as Rs. 20 only.
Metro Bus Authority:
To run the daily affairs of Metro Bus, the authority was created with the name of Punjab Metro Bus Authority. This authority is responsible for the construction of Metro Bus Project in Lahore and other cities, to control and manage the projects, maintenance, administration and other to manage all other relevant features and functionality. The CM of Punjab is the chairman of authority while the provincial Transport minister for Province Punjab is the Vice president of the authority. The M.D runs the daily task and look after the staff of the authority. Currently the authority has 49 employees to which the authority has to pay 27 Lacs on monthly basis which include the staff’s salary and other allowances. The staff is recruited on contract basis.
Financial Condition:
The authority has to bear about 20 million rupees to run the operation of Metro Bus on monthly basis, while the revenue that Metro Bus earns is only about 8 million rupees and thus the authority is bearing the deficit of 12 million rupees on monthly basis. A Turkish company Albarak is responsible to run the Metro Bus while the authority is paying to the Turkish company on basis of per kilometer. The Turkish company is responsible to pay the salary of drivers and to refill the fuel tanks. According to the calculations I got that the fair for per passenger is costing about Rs. 49 per passenger while the passenger is paying only Rs. 20 at the time. The Punjab Provincial Government is paying the deficit from his own account.
As it is a public welfare project, so the provincial government is running it even on deficit. But I think this deficit can be reduced and the Metro Bus can be a profitable project without shifting the heavy cost burden on the public. Here are the suggestions for the Government of Punjab and relevant authority.
The stations of Metro Bus Lahore can be used for advertising, ATM machines of Commercial can be installed, shopping stores, out lets of different brands as the stations are wide enough to maintain these stores and outlets while facilitating the passengers as well.
Metro Bus will also help to reduce the environmental pollution as this service is becoming popular in the public and due to its cost effectiveness, people prefer to travel through the Metro Bus, as a result this will reduce the burden of traffic on roads and thus government doesn’t need t import the cars and bikes that will furthermore leads to save the foreign reserves and also Pakistan can earn the revenue just like the Delhi Metro has brought the reduction in environmental pollution and awarded by the UN four lacs carbon credits.
Company must plan for the addition of buses as the passengers are increasing that prefers to travel through the Metro Bus Service in order to earn more revenue. Other option includes the increase of nominal addition in fair i.e. addition of 5 rupees and it will result in the double of revenue from 8 million to 15 million with a period of 3 years.
Beside the above stated suggestions, the authority can also manage the affairs of Metro Bus with proper management. Indeed this is a great facility for those who have to travel from Gajumata to Shahdara and they have to travel for about one and half an hour now they can complete their journey within 40 minutes. The CM of Punjab has a plan to launch the same system for the other cities of Punjab like Multan, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad. While the public of Karachi is also hoping for the same sort of project.
Here are some facts that the residents of Lahore especially from FerozPur Road faced:
The some property owners who surrendered their properties in the favor of Metro Bus Authority didn’t yet receive the money for their property. One merchant complained that the value of his commercial shop was one crore rupees but the was paid only 33 Lacs. Another merchant claimed the value of his shop as 3.5 million rupees but he received only 1.3 million rupees. There are also some houses and homes of which the occupant hasn’t the official documentary records of property, and such people are asked for the surrender of property with the promise of being paid but they are not paid yet by asking that only those having official property records will get the payment from government.
Also the Metro Bus caused the shortage of earning resources for those mini cab (rikshwas) drivers and other private vehicle owners are also suffered from the rote of Metro Bus. And majority of Drivers and Conductors are affected badly by Metro Bus Route as they lost their job which is the only way for most of them to earn their livelihood.
Government should settle all these problems so that the affected people can also get their life to normal routine.