SWABI, Jan 29: Transporters of Swabi and Mardan are set to hold talks with secretary transport Azmat Hanif Orakzai in Peshawar today (Monday) to demand increase in fares commensurate with the oil and CNG price hike during last one year.

“We and transporters from Mardan are proceeding to Peshawar for talks with secretary transport and we hope to reach an acceptable formula for increase in fares,” said Waqif Khan, president of Swabi district transport association.

The transporters on Sunday also allowed coaches to ply on Swabi-Mardan route after they noted that the alternative arrangements made for commuters by the district administration had been successful. However, their strike on other routes continued on other routes.

Asked about success of the alternative arrangements, Mr Khan claimed that they ended the strike on one major route to discourage outsiders getting benefit of the situation.

The transporters’ demand for increase in fares has been rejected as unjustified by Commissioner, Mardan, Adil Khan, DCO Mohammad Shah and DPO Mohammad Ijaz in meetings during the past few days.

Mr Khan said that they had already rejected the nominal increase in fare made by the administration and would end the strike only after their demand for sufficient raise was accepted.

POLIO CAMPAIGN: District coordination officer Mohammad Shah and officials of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) have urged the local NGOs to play their role in reducing the polio vaccine refusal cases in the district.

In this connection, the DCO presided over a meeting to discuss arrangements for the three-day anti-polio campaign, starting from Monday (today). He said that polio vaccine will be administered to all children below five years of age.

The refusal cases had been reported from congested areas like Malikabad, Salim Khan, Gandaf and Yar Hussain areas. EPI district coordinator Dr Mohammad Riaz said that there were a number of people in other localities that had been refusing to administer polio vaccine to their children.

He said that they were working with help of ulema and local elders to convince parents on administering polio vaccines to save their children from the crippling disease.