FOR thousands of students of Karachi University (KU), getting to and f rom the campus is a choice between broken buses and puttering rickshaws. Unless you have your own car to take you to the university, your options are limited. This is why an estimated 22,000 students fight for a seat on 27 campus buses.
The campus buses, or points, do not provide door-to-door service. They run on fixed routes and have designated stops.
One-way f are is Rs5 only, which is why students prefer them over public transport.
Needless to say, 27 buses are not enough.
Taking advantage of this shortage, the rickshaw mafia has long exploited the students, charging higher f ares.
According to KU transport officials, the monthly departmental budget of Rs200,000 is simply not good enough to do much about the problems being f aced by the studentseventhoughthereis acknowledgment of the dire need to add more buses. Also, maintenance is costly affair because the current buses are pretty old.
