<\/p>\n
Karachi’s pink buses have defied scepticism by remaining operational post-elections, dispelling notions of the service being merely a political gimmick.<\/p>\n
Brightly coloured pink buses, seldom seen on the roads of Karachi, are like a fragile thread suturing the wounds borne by women after years of transport woes and facing harassment on the city\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n
Emblazoned with logos of various brands, and loaded with women belonging to different classes and ethnicities, the dedicated bus service, comprising 18 vehicles only runs on three main routes \u2014 Model Colony to Merewether Tower, North Karachi to Korangi and Numaish Chowrangi to Sea View Beach.<\/p>\n
The pink bus fleet is part of a public initiative called the Sindh Peoples Intra District Project launched in 2021. The two parties involved in this project are the Government of Sindh (GsS) and the National Radio and Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC).<\/p>\n
The latter is the contractor responsible for the maintenance and operations of the buses and their depots. Meanwhile, the GOS provides the subsidies and logistical support to run the project.<\/p>\n
Sitting on a bench at a footpath, parallel to Shahrea Faisal \u2014 the major thoroughfare connecting almost all of Karachi \u2014 was Wajahat Fatima who has commuted via the pink bus every day since its launch last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n Putting aside the book she had been reading for the past hour while waiting for the bus, she stood up with great difficulty and stepped closer to the edge of the footpath once the bus was in sight.<\/p>\n The bus driver parked close to the edge of the footpath as the conductor came out to assist Fatima climb the bus. She sat on one of the two seats allocated for disabled persons. \u201cEver since I got into an accident last year there has been constant joint pain in my leg,\u201d said Fatima, who works at a shipping company.<\/p>\n She took out a small portable stool from inside her bag and set it on the floor to rest her leg on. Although it occupied space, none of the women standing inside the crowded bus seemed to complain; rather they made space for her.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bus has been a blessing for women like me who need to sit down, men in the other bus service [red bus] hog up the seats for the disabled and refuse to stand up, even though they are able-bodied,\u201d she lamented.<\/p>\n While Wajahat chooses to wait for the bus, most women board any available.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the buses, whether pink, green, red, or white, provide the same comfort. It doesn\u2019t matter which bus you get on, as long as you don\u2019t have to wait on the bus stand for too long \u2014 that gets very uncomfortable,\u201d Zareen Khan noted, as she awaited a bus that would take her from II Chundrigarh Road to Model Town.<\/p>\n As per the NRTC operator, Abdul Shakoor, the pink bus is running with a headway time of 30 minutes, which means that one should be able to get a pink bus every 30 minutes on its three routes.<\/p>\n However, it seems to be far from the truth. The author herself was unable to get a bus even after waiting for two hours, from 3:30pm to 5:30pm on the Merewether Clock Tower and II Chundrigar bus stop for four days in a row.<\/p>\n When Dawn.com<\/em> asked Shakoor about the shortage of buses, there was no response.<\/p>\n When the bus was launched last year, women and urban planners talking to the author<\/a> had pointed out how safety at bus stops would be essential in making transport safe for women. At the time, then managing director (MD) of the Sindh Mass Transit Authority (SMTA) Zubair Channa had said<\/a> that the authority was working on establishing more bus stops and that they \u201chave asked the authorities and are waiting for approvals\u201d.<\/p>\n However, the situation seems to remain the same today.<\/p>\n The incumbent MD of SMTA, Kamal Dayo, told Dawn.com<\/em> that the authority and contractors did build some stops but the cameras, benches, and lights installed were stolen by \u201cdrug addicts\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe asked the Karachi Electric (KE) for light connections at the bus stops, however, the response had been lukewarm. Hence, to solve that issue, we took connections from nearby installations,\u201d Dayo said. This is, however, illegal and when the KE found out, they sent detection bills to the operator worth Rs0.2 million.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are trying to address the objections raised by KE. However, it takes months; until then the contractors, who invested money in building the bus stop, can\u2019t stop running the operations; it would cause them huge losses,\u201d Bashir Hassan, the SMTA accountant, pointed out.<\/p>\n Dayo said that another problem is that there are 17 land-owning agencies in Karachi, and to make depots on even one route, they have to take permission from several different authorities. \u201cThere are bureaucratic hurdles in getting the facilities to the public because each department has its own laws, rules, and regulations. There should be exemptions when you\u2019re running public projects,\u201d said the SMTA MD.<\/p>\n In the inaugural ceremony, there was also talk of women driving these buses.<\/p>\n Following that promise, six months on, a bus driver training programme was launched<\/a> in which 12 women were trained<\/a> to drive these buses. To date, however, no woman has been seen in the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo of the 12 women we trained had a Light Traffic Vehicle (LTV) license and after the training, they obtained the Heavy Traffic Vehicle (HTV) license,\u201d said Huma Ashraf, the gender specialist at SMTA. To be able to drive a pink bus, women need a permanent HTV license. To obtain this, a person needs 10 years of experience driving an LTV, followed by three years on a learner\u2019s HTV license.<\/p>\n Most women selected for training had no prior experience, hence, they were only given training on LTV licenses. However, as the women trained belonged to less-privileged backgrounds, they lacked access to driving vehicles in the first place. It therefore made it highly unlikely for them to have enough driving experience to apply for an HTV license.<\/p>\n The two women who have received a learner\u2019s HTV licence are unable to drive the pink buses because the contractors are hesitant to put them on board as drivers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are trying to convince the contractors to put them in the bus as co-drivers so they can observe, learn and practice but they [contractors] are reluctant to do so,\u201d said Ashraf. He added that they will start training new batches of women from May.<\/p>\n Another problem for commuters who want to use pink buses is the lack of information.<\/p>\n While there is an app called the People Bus Service<\/a>, developed by Kentkart, which gives information about the routes, closest bus stops, and tariffs, it lacks important features, as pointed out by users in the review section of the app on Google store, such as live tracking of the buses as well as specific information about pink buses.<\/p>\n Users also said that the option to buy tickets is unavailable online which they found inconvenient.<\/p>\nUnfulfilled promises<\/h2>\n
Cracks in the system<\/h2>\n