Karachi has one facility for testing the fitness of commercial vehicles. The testing process at this facility, however, amounts to mere eyewash.

Commercial vehicles, including rickshaws, taxi cabs, small transport vehicles (Shehzore), buses, minibuses, coasters, trucks, lorries and trailers are, under the motor vehicle law, required to be inspected annually or biannually in order to ascertain whether they are in good working order and fit to traverse the roads. Commercial vehicles, such as Hi-ace, Suzuki Pick Ups and Metro Cabs, however, do not fall under the jurisdiction of this law due to their weight or vehicle classification and are thus exempt despite being used commercially.

How are vehicles tested?

Vehicles have to be brought over to the Motor Vehicle Inspection Centre (MVIC) located in Baldia Town, within the boundaries of the Police Training Academy. An inspector then manually checks the vehicle for the fitness of its engine, brakes, wheels and body.

An MVIC inspector, who asked to remain anonymous, said that vehicles are tested by inspectors for smoke emissions, engine fitness, body condition, including colour coat, side and rear view mirrors, the condition of the wheel and tyres and the vehicle's braking ability. There are about six to seven inspectors who are on duty six days a week for the different categories of vehicles. This translates to almost one inspector per category.

If the inspector is not satisfied with the fitness of the vehicle, it is sent back to have the problems areas rectified and brought in for a second inspection. Once the inspector is satisfied with the condition, the vehicle is issued a certificate of fitness in the form a sticker which is placed on the windshield in open view; the dates of issuance and expiry of the certificate are clearly marked on the sticker. The vehicles which come in for the reissue of the certificate are awarded the certificate for a period of six months, the least permitted by law.

The inspector who spoke to Kolachi said that the fitness test is performed by visually observing the condition of the vehicle, the colour coat being uniform and complete and all dents removed. Peripherals such as hazard and indicator lights, reflectors and head lights are turned on to see whether they are working properly. Then the vehicle's ability to brake properly is checked by testing it practically or manually braking the car to a complete stop. The engine and its smoke-emissions are tested by flooring the accelerator and listening to the sounds of the engine and watching the amount of smoke spewed by the vehicle.

A range of rates have been stipulated for the renewal of fitness certificates for different categories of vehicles, and fees are deposited at the post office or at the designated branches of the National Bank of Pakistan.

Ground realities

The MVIC, however, is being by-passed by owners of commercial vehicles, the inspectors who work there, as well as the government. No machines or tools to check the wheel alignment or analysing smoke emissions are used at the facility. The inspection has to be conducted manually.

MVIC inspectors have diplomas in Automotive Engineering. They are not given any further training or tools by the government. Inspector said that they inspect around 150 vehicles daily. This figure is meagre, when compared to the number of commercial vehicles on the road, they said.

The reason vehicles are not queuing up every day in front of the MVIC is because many vehicles which are due for a fitness inspection, either make a short trip to Lasbella and get their paperwork completed from there for a paltry sum of Rs100 for the certificate and penalty; the owners of other commercial vehicles get out of the situation by bribing their way around the streets.

"Approximately 30 to 35 per cent of the vehicles which are brought the MVIC fail the test and are sent back to have their faults corrected. Some people get their vehicles fixed at the nearby workshops, bring it back and get their certificate. Others never come back," one inspector said.

'Street bribes are lower than those at the MVIC'

The inspectors themselves are also a notorious lot. Querying any rickshaw driver or bus operator about the situation at the MVIC presents a completely different story from the one related to Kolachi by MVIC inspectors.

Munir, a driver whose rickshaw is devoid of a certification sticker, boldly said that he did not have his rickshaw tested because the police will still stop him on the roads and request bribes anyway. "MVIC inspectors demand bribes of Rs500 for the certificate; despite that, the police still pull me over and ask for bribes on the road. So I decided to save Rs500, and pay policemen when they stop me. A solitary policeman usually asks for Rs20; a sergeant demands Rs50," he said.

Anwer, another rickshaw driver who usually plies the Korangi route, echoed Munir's words. "MVIC inspectors demand bribes of Rs500 for a rickshaw; Rs1,000 for a taxi cab or Shehzore; and somewhere around Rs1,500 for larger vehicles such as buses, minibuses and trucks," he said.

Other tricks of the trade

MVIC inspectors claim that people who come in for vehicle-inspection have several tricks up their sleeves. "When a two-stroke rickshaw driver or a diesel truck owner comes for fitness tests for his vehicle, he turns down the oil and fuel valves. This in turn lowers the combustion materials in the engine and thus lowers that smoke emission of the vehicle," they said.

Major overhauls are therefore needed at every level of the vehicle-inspection process in order to implement the laws concerned, especially with the growing number of incidents of commercial vehicles being involved in road accidents; dilapidated buses, minibuses, coaches, taxis and rickshaws are also said to be one of the biggest causes of pollution in the city.

Comparative Statement of FCs for the year 2008

S# Category Issued Renewed No. of Total Vehicles Vehicles

Vehicles Amount Failed Inspected

1. HTV Truck 458 2,027 2,485 372,840 1,349 3,376

2. LTV Truck Hiace 2,566 12,753 15,319 1,036,407 4,107 16,860

3. Bus 60 1,702 1,762 225,460 702 2,404

4. Minibus 176 4,151 4,327 453,898 1,282 5,433

5. Coach 0 1,788 1,788 188,275 537 2,325

6. Yellow Cab 133 5,308 5,441 625,010 1,340 6,648

7. Baby Taxi 712 9,883 10,595 691,470 4,598 14,481

8. Cab/Rickshaw 4,675 10,774 15,449 455,180 4,152 14,926

9. Sukkur 69 6,971 7,040 587,961 3,535 10,506

10. Larkana 19 6,480 6,499 601,193 3,216 9,696

11. Hyderabad 239 16,223 16,462 1,539,874 8,603 24,826

12. Mirpurkhas 39 1,656 1,695 181,392 826 2,482

Grand Total 9,146 79,716 88,862 6,968,960 34,247 113,963

Not far away from the seat of the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) in Gulshan-e-Iqbal lie small tattered shops cramped with rusted gas cylinders. These shops sell highly inflammable liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to rickshaws and taxis through decanting -- a trade officially banned in the country.

Decanting, whereby LPG is filled from one cylinder into another, can be a perilous process; many people, mostly shopkeepers, have lost their lives in infernos caused due to mishandling. In fact, being highly inflammable, LPG requires extensive supply infrastructure to be handled carefully.

This trade has flourished over the years on the back of phenomenal profits. Major oil companies, both local and foreign, have jumped into the business. Simultaneously, the number of LPG decanting outlets in the city keeps increasing, with over three thousand shops now estimated to be operating without any official check.

Malik Taimur Awan of LPG Retail Shopkeepers Association told Kolachi that successive police actions have not been able to seal even one decanting outlet. "Official restriction on LPG decanting has provided just another way for police to take bribes," he claimed.

There seems to be some truth to Awan's account: not only do many of these decanterers work on the ground floor of multi-storey residential buildings, and in buildings near schools and hospitals, transporting LPG is an equally risky endeavour. Small pickup trucks are often seen loading old LPG cylinders from roadside distributors in Patel Para, and then commuting though busy streets to supply the gas to decanterers situated in congested residential localities across the city.

Despite the prevalence of such a practice, no concrete actions have been taken to stop decanting. To its credit, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) sponsors quarter page advertisements in newspapers after every few days, apprising the public about the dangers associated with LPG decanting, but as Awan put it, the root cause of the issue lies elsewhere.

"Raiding LPG decanterers is not the only solution to the problem. If decanting is illegal, then the government should take action against LPG marketing companies, who are responsible for supplying it to the market," said Awan, adding that the companies are least concerned with the fuel's end usage.

Unlike the sale of other petroleum products, which are retailed under proper franchise, LPG marketing companies use an obscure network of middlemen for the distribution of their product. Those associated with the industry told Kolachi that this murkiness makes it convenient for the marketing companies to lay all the blame on distributors whenever lives are lost in an accident.

"It's all eyewash. Marketing companies take an undertaking from their distributor, barring them from selling it to the decanterers. That is just paper work to pacify the regulator, but we get all the LPG from same distributors," said Faiz Ahmed, a decanterer.

This LPG business involves billions of rupees. It makes up not even one percent of total energy products consumed yet over 80 licensed marketing companies vie for market share. Most of the enterprises are family-owned, and these LPG marketing companies are least regulated. They thrive on small allocations of fuel from the producers, while there are no overhead costs for these companies, which even can be run from homes.

On the other hand, a spokesman for PSO said the state-run marketing company does not supply LPG to decanterers. "We sell it to those distributors who have restaurants, hotels and other commercial users as their customers." He said that PSO is making arrangements for selling LPG through proper fuel stations, but such fuel pumps are expected to be set up in first half of 2010.

Ogra spokesman Asad Latif could not, however, provide any convincing response. He was asked to comment on irregularities in LPG business but instead his emailed response centred on CNG.

Historically, LPG was used in far-flung areas, which were deprived of piped natural gas. It was never intended to be used in automobiles. The marketing companies and their distributors came into existence slowly, as the supply of LPG increased. Mostly in cities, LPG distributors cater to people living in suburbs.  

Hadi Khan, Chairman of LPG Distributors Association, has been affiliated with the business since 1972.  "Back then, a few minibuses used to run on LPG, which was very cheap compared with other petroleum products," he told Kolachi. "Then in 1990s, LPG started being sold as fuel for auto-rickshaws, mini vans and taxis," he recalled.

After the Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited (JJVL) started production in 2005, there has been substantial increase in supply of LPG. Subsequently, more LPG companies came into the market.

Forty-five-year-old Mohammed Tuffail, the father of nine children and a worker at a brick-kiln in Sindh, is in despair. Tuffail is bonded to the owner of the kiln via debt, and sees no way out of the ever-increasing amount of money that he owes the owner.

He suspects that an "artificial" accounting system is in place. "There is no other way that my debts would continue to increase despite the fact that I have regularly been paying back the amount that I owe in the form of labour," he told Indus Watch.

Five of Tuffail's children and his wife also work at the kiln from dawn to dusk. They even stay at the site in a makeshift home, along with several other similar families. The labour of all these workers is mostly unaccounted for.

Since all the workers in neighbourhood are also indebted to the owner of the kiln, they bring their family members, including minor children, to the workplace to help make as many bricks as possible, Tuffail said. "They have no choice. They are paid on a piece-making basis, and in order to meet the unreal targets set for them, they have to work very hard. The children of course are unable to go to schools," he said.

Near the heart

There are about 200 brick-kilns around Hyderabad city. Each unit "employs" around 300 to 400 workers.

Asthma, skin diseases, Hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis and perpetual fever are prevalent among people who work at kilns. The primary reasons for these ailments are the heavy environmental pollution at the kilns, and the harsh living conditions.

Many young women at Tuffail's kiln have died during childbirth; the death of children is also fairly common, due to the absolute absence of healthcare facilities.

Brick-kiln workers generally live like a family, because of the similar conditions that they face. All of them are indebted; none of them have a way out.

In case of emergencies, especially deaths, they collect small donations from each other and arrange funerals themselves, instead of seeking help from kiln owners, because the latter often refuse to help.

Lives that went up in smoke

Fifty-year-old Sodho Oad belongs to Tando Jan Mohammed, Mirpurkhas. He said that he has worked at two kilns for three years along with his entire family of three sons and a wife. Most of the time, he said, he was trapped into debts, so he preferred to run away from that work.

He recalls that in 1998, the kiln owner used to pay Rs130 for making 1,000 raw bricks to his family. This amount was extremely insufficient to meet even domestic expenditures, he added.

"When I opened my eyes I saw smoky air and dirt all around me. My parents, brothers and sisters also worked at kilns. Now my children are living the same life here," said All-Hyderabad Batha Mazdoor Association General Secretary Mohammed Hussain Khokhar.

Born in 1951 to a family of brick-kiln workers, Khokar joined the same line of work at the age of five. Entire families, ranging from two members (wife and husband) to 10 members (including children from the ages of five to 13) have to work at kilns because of the arduous task and meagre payment.

'Outside exploitation replaced local honesty, generosity'

Khokar recalled that when he was young, the owners of the kilns were mostly local Sindhis. They were honest, generous and kind as compared to the new ones, who are mostly from other parts of the country and are "cruel and greedy".

In case of emergency, local owners used to take sick workers to hospitals, bearing all the expenditure of the treatment and medicines. Workers were quite happy and performed their tasks efficiently and without any stress.

Khokar now suffers from asthma. Under the new "foreign" owners, there is no concept of seeking leave, because the entire family has to work on a contract basis. "We cannot even think about enjoying a life of freedom, because we are trapped in a never-ending vicious cycle of debt. We work under stress and a lot of pressure," he said.

One kiln owner deprived workers of wages amounting to Rs6.9 million over the last five years, he said. There is no accurate data of exploitation because there is no accountability of Batha (brick-kiln) owners.

Debt cycle

Workers are first given a lump-sum amount as debt, which bonds them to the owners of kilns until the money has been paid off, Khokar told Indus Watch. They are them paid a meagre amount for their labour. The payment is often so less, that families cannot even afford buy flour or rations. They then get more debts from owners, deepening the bondage.

"All families on kilns constantly face starvation and an endless poverty," Khokar said.

Will unionisation work?

Khokar spoke about the need to form a trade union of brick-kiln workers. "Earlier, we had felt no need to form a trade union, because our lives and livelihood were safe. Now, however, after 40 years of working at kilns, I am convinced that trade unions can be effective for the protection of workers' rights," he said.

Khokar, however, was concerned about retaliation from brick-kiln owners. Some union activists and their family members have had to face false charges, fake criminal cases and court trials. "These tactics, however, have not disheartened us. More and more brick-kiln workers in Sindh are joining unions to fight for the common cause of safe livelihood, getting social security and justice," he said. "We want brick-kiln owners to treat all workers equally irrespective of their caste and religion. We want them to stop forcing children and the elderly from working in the scorching heat and the freezing mornings of winter."

'Unskilled labour has no other option'

Zulfiqar Shah, a senior researcher associated with the Pakistan Institute of Labour, Education and Research (Piler), said that most brick-kiln workers are poor, illiterate and largely unskilled.

They have no option but to work at kilns for negligible wages. "They also obtain loans against the promised work before or after joining the kiln, and cannot clear the outstanding amounts due to their low wages. Slowly the credit adds up, with the addition of exorbitant compound interest, and it them becomes impossible for them to ever clear their debts," he said.

Moreover, these workers are not allowed to leave the workplace or join any other profession until they have cleared every penny that they owe the kiln owner.

Where is the law?

Green Rural Development Organisation (GRDO) President Dr Haider Malokhani said that about 6,000 bonded workers were recently freed from brick-kilns through courts. They are now registered voters, but use their votes only on the directives of local influential people. In return, they get nothing to bring relief to their families.

Fifty-year-old Naimat Khokhar, who has worked at various kilns all his live, was recently freed through a court order. The family, however, is homeless now, and spend their lives as gypsies, flitting between kilns.

Restricting agency

A majority of the approximately 33,000 brick-kiln workers in Sindh are Bheels and Kohlis -- low-caste Hindus, who have limited options anyway in a society with rigid caste structures.

At least three people can make 1,000 raw bricks in a day, but the remuneration for this arduous job is just Rs600. These workers are even deprived of this meagre amount, because of the manipulative debt trap. This exploitation ends up making millionaires out of kiln owners, and helpless gypsies out of the people who actually do the work and make bricks.

Brick-kiln owners hire supervisors, most of whom have criminal backgrounds, to keep an eye on workers at all hours of the day and the night. If a worker takes so much as a breather, he or she is quickly, and often viciously, herded back and forced to begin work again immediately.

'Not an industry'

Meanwhile, brick-kiln owners claim that they are the ones who get the short end of the stick. "For one, brick-kiln manufacturing is not considered an industry," one owner told Indus Watch. "Due to this, we are unable to obtain bank loans for our business."

Secondly, he claimed that workers refuse to join kilns unless owners give them a lump-sum amount to start off. "Many of them then run away, leaving us with huge losses," he maintained.

He, however, refused to comment on reports of how owners collaborate with the local police to ensure that workers cannot even think of running away.

What is the govt doing?

In 2005, the government had fixed a rate Rs290 for making 1,000 bricks. Owners, however, informed workers that they will receive only Rs160. Even out of this amount, owners often deduct about Rs80 for providing rations and to pay back interest for loans. In this way, workers often end up with less than Rs50 for making as many as 1,000 bricks -- many don't even get a single paisa.

In 2008, this rate was revised by the government, and set at Rs443 for manufacturing 1,000 raw bricks.

Double-digit inflation rates, and skyrocketing prices of food and essential items, however, render even this increase useless.

The poor families are still hopeful that one day they will be able to pay back the amount they owe. But it is only the dream which may never come true in the prevailing accounting system.