KARACHI: Sindh Minister for Information, Transport and Mass Transit Sharjeel Inam Memon on Tuesday announced that electric taxi service will be launched soon in Karachi under Sindh Mass Transit Authority and it is agreed in principle in meeting held today that taxi service will be launched in two phases with fleet of Blue and Pink Taxi.
Pink Taxi will be reserved for women only, the minister announced this while talking to media at Sindh Assembly’s Media Corner. PPP member of Sindh Assembly Syed Zulifiqar Ali Shah was also present. The minister said that in the first phase, Pink Taxi Service for women would be launched and lady captains would be hired to drive pink taxis and its fare would be between Rs200 to Rs500.
He added that a proper monitoring system, including cameras, would be installed in taxi service for the safety of the passengers. The minister said that on the directives of Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the public transport system was being modernized in the province.
He said that the BRT Orange Line was functional and was being redesigned to integrate it with the Green Line. He said that people’s bus service had been successfully running its operations in Karachi, Larkana, Hyderabad and at the end of December, it would be launched in Sukkur city.
He said that the first electric bus service would also be launched soon in Karachi and negotiations on the agreement with operators were in the final phase. He said that BRT Yellow Line would start soon and its construction would commence with construction of the bridge along with the Jam Sadiq bridge as an international bidding process had been started and traffic police had been directed to divert the heavy traffic on the bridge.
He called traffic a serious issue in the city and JICA has conducted a study on Karachi traffic in 2011. He added that a Lebanese company had been tasked to conduct a new study on traffic and it is under way.
REACTION TO WASEEM AKHTAR’S STATEMENT
He said that MQM Pakistan is our coalition partner in center and we have agreed on points and we talk on parameters of agreed issues. He said that they did take Waseem Akhtar’s statements seriously.
Waseem Akhtar has not raised such issues in any meeting. Whether he (Waseem Akhtar) had given a statement with the permission of his leadership. He said that Waseem Akhtar might have given such a statement in context of upcoming local bodies elections so as to revive their reputation in the public and to activate their workers.
He said that the law and order situation in Karachi is much better than in the past. He said that now no one can close down the city on a 10 minutes strike call. Extortion and dead bodies in sakes stopped. No one can set the buses on fire.
He added that crime rate in metropolitan cities remain high through-out the world but this doesn’t mean that he was defending it. He added: “Karachi is a safe city and is better than the law and order situation in Peshawar, Quetta and Lahore.” The minister said that the Sindh government had allocated 100 percent funds in the budget for the safe city project. The work is underway on the project. He added that the police were trying to contain street crime in the city.
Mr Memon said that the issue of illegal Immigrants is a mandate of NARA. Sindh police is trying to address the issue and has arrested a number of illegal immigrants. He said that the arrested illegal immigrants would be deported after legal formalities. The minister said that illegal Immigrants had no right to do sales and purchases of any kind. It is international law throughout the world that illegal immigrants have no such rights.
He said that illegal Immigrants would be dealt with strictly according to law if illegal immigrants were involved in street crimes and would be deported. He said that the PTI is in a state of chaos, fear and panic. PTI’s own Chief Minister Punjab had called the PTI chief as selfish and thankless, but astonishly no leader of PTI had condemned it. He said that Imran Khan had not spared his patrons, what will he do for the people.
