Archive for July 16th, 2008
Bus owners get ready to crush the people
And so with the soaring oil prices, public transportation in Pakistan have also increased their charges. It is sad indeed for the common man like me who has no choice but to pay gigantic sums of money just to get from one point to another. Why does man even need to move from one place to another anyway? Why can’t we just stay at one point and do all our stuff right there. Makes me wonder how the ancients used to get to work. Humans generally spend all their life just travelling to the same places over and over again. Anyhoo my commute to work now costs a whopping 50 rupees. I have to change 2 buses and it takes more than an hour just to get to work. Totally insane.
The transport lords have also increased the minimum fare to Rs. 10. It used to be just 6 a month ago. So that’s like a 65% increase. The general consensus is that the bus owners have a monopoly because they are in league with the people in power and therefore do what ever they want So they’ve made available only 3 tickets, 10, 15 or 20. Every day I witness some poor citizen of Pakistan squabbling with the conductor refusing to pay the fare. The PPP government seems unable to stop the increasing inflation. They blame it on the previous government who blame it on bad luck. The poor on the other hand continue to wail away hoping someone would listen to their cries of anguish.
