Pak-Afghan bus service to resume soon 

PESHAWAR: The government of Pakistan has geared up to restart the Pak-Afghan Friendship Bus Service. This will be an encouraging move towards the resumption of frequent movement of commuters across the Pak-Afghan border.

The Dosti Bus Service was initiated in March 2006 on a trial basis and then it was formally launched on May 26 the same year with 1,300 buses. The service was then facilitating around 1,000 people on a daily basis but was terminated six years ago due to the tense situation between the governments.

The district administration in Peshawar held a meeting with the stakeholders regarding the resumption of the Pak-Afghan bus service at Commissioner House in Peshawar recently. While speaking to Bol News, Peshawar Commissioner Riaz Mehsud said “At the request of the government of Afghanistan, a meeting was called to review the security situation and the code of conduct for the Pak-Afghan Dosti bus service resumption”.

He informed the media that “The notification has been issued to the district administration and the police of Peshawar and Khyber, a newly merged tribal district, to initiate a security plan for the safety of buses and passengers under the Pak-Afghan bus service”, Mehsud added.

Answering a query, he said “After the resumption of the bus service, the immigration officials will check the documents of the passengers and also other facilities at bus terminals in order to ensure that the passengers do not face any problem.”

He also informed that “The authorities will hire the services of a company through tender call in the month of January that will ensure that a standard 45-seater in each zero-meter bus gets operational under the supervision of security guards”.

Revealing future plans for the Pak-Afghan Bus Service, Mehsud said “After the success of the first plan from Peshawar to Jalalabad, the bus service will be extended in the second phase to facilitate the travellers between Islamabad and Kabul”.

The bus service will carry passengers from Peshawar to Jalalabad in 40 buses, while, on the other side of the border, another 40 buses will run daily from Jalalabad to Peshawar. The bus service will be a major support for thousands of Afghan refugee families, businessmen, and local people working at either side of the border.

‘An excellent decision’

Sarbaz Khan, hailing from Jalalabad in Afghanistan and now living a refugee’s life in Peshawar, carries groceries for his Jalalabad shop to Peshawar. He calls the development “an excellent decision by the government of Pakistan and Afghanistan”.

The refugee businessman further said “The Pak-Afghan bus service symbolised friendship between the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan and if the service is restarted, the majority of people will travel easily across the border”.

While sharing his experience of carrying groceries to Jalalabad, he said “I often load all the goods on a taxi hired from the Karkhano bus stand in Peshawar and then offload them at Torkham, and then reload it on another taxi on the Afghanistan side, and then travel to Jalalabad which is hectic and expensive”.

Expressing hope he said the resumption of the Pak-Afghan Dosti Bus Service will ease the difficulties of commuters on either side. The matter of the resumption of the bus service was taken up during the visit of the Afghan Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in December last year. He requested the government of Pakistan to resume the bus service. There is a proposal of such service from Balochistan as well, but the government of Pakistan in the first phase has decided to resume the Dosti bus service via Torkham.

Faqir Mohammad Faqirzai, an Afghan journalist based in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, has expressed happiness over the positive development between the two countries.  He termed the service a positive development for travellers on either side of the border.

While shedding light on the current situation of the border gates, he said “Currently there is huge crowed on the border gates and people are spending hectic days and nights only to get entry to Pakistan”.

He suggested that this is the right time to start the bus service on other border gates like Ghulam Khan terminal in North Waziristan and the Kharlachi border in Kurram district. After Chaman in Balochistan, the Torkham gate is the second largest port of entry between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The driving distance between Peshawar and Torkham gate is 55km, which is only accessible via a taxi stand in the Karkhano Market in Peshawar.

It should be added that the resumption of the Pak-Afghan bus service is the hope of around 834,387 registered citizens of Afghanistan residing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Meanwhile, locals in Khyber district are criticizing the initiative saying that operators of thousands of taxis, coaches and Suzukis will be rendered unemployed.

They have called upon the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to not award the tender of the services to the firm concerned. Locals also shared posts on social media saying that they should employ all the local taxi drivers who carried passengers to Torkham border who are going to be rendered unemployed by such services.

The writer is a freelance contributor based in Peshawar

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