By Ramesh Mathew/Staff Reporter

With the mercury soaring, travelling to and from work has become a taxing experience for construction workers who are ferried in buses that are mostly without airconditioners.
This came to light during visits to a number of locations within and outside Doha over the past few days. And it’s not just the labourers who are having a tough time, but even drivers are finding it hard to operate such buses. They sometimes have to drive over 60km to take the workers to their accommodation from the worksite.
Many workers in the construction industry are taken to their worksite sometimes as early as 4am. “However the heat sets in early in the morning and travelling by buses without ACs is simply unbearable,” said a driver, who has been ferrying workers from their accommodation in the southern end of the Industrial Area to a worksite off North Road.
There are times when workers have to sweat it out for 90 minutes or more during a single journey. “Spending even five minutes in these conditions is unbearable,” said a worker who has to travel regularly in non-AC buses. Other workers ferried in non-AC buses faced a similar situation.
The manager of a firm in the Industrial Area, which supplies vehicles for workers’ transportation, said: “Once in a while, we receive enquiries for supplying AC buses to ferry workers. However, such instances are rare,” he said.
The manager said most requests for AC buses came from companies managed by western expatriates. According to him, it was doubtful if even 5% of buses meant for workers’ transportation in the country were airconditioned.
Another transport official at a large-scale construction firm said it would provide huge relief to workers if the Ministry of Labour intervened to make their transportation in AC buses mandatory, at least during the summer - between May and September.
About a couple of years ago, the country’s transport officials had announced at a meeting about their plans to make AC buses compulsory for the transportation of construction workers. It was then announced that 70-seater AC buses would be introduced in the country “sooner than later” for this purpose. However, this is yet to happen, said sources.
When the matter was raised with Mowasalat recently, an official said plans were afoot and AC buses to carry construction workers in Qatar would become a reality. However, he could not confirm when such buses would hit the roads.