PAKISTAN'S battered old black and yellow taxis including some which were up to 28 years old are now a rare sight.
Many of them have been replaced by about 50,000 brand new yellow taxis specially imported during the past three years, under an employment creation programme introduced by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Under the plan, unemployed youth were allowed to put up a 10 per cent down payment, while public sector banks were ordered to chip in the rest in commercial loans, recoverable over a five to eight-year period.
As a result, taxis changed from battered old Morris Minors to brand new Mercedes, Peugeot, Toyota, Hyundai, Daewoo and Suzuki cars overnight.
However, the scheme had to be abandoned after creating a nightmare for many banks, which feared financial collapse when the taxi owners began defaulting on repayments.
But the suspension of the scheme does not help to resolve the plight of 13,000 cars stranded in port in Karachi, because banks have refused to sanction new loans.
The Government has reduced the customs duty on the cars in order to sell them at a discount, either to drivers who placed orders for them, or to other buyers. But it is not clear how long it will take to clear the backlog.