Karachi gets 80 more buses for People’s Bus Service

KARACHI: Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar on Wednesday announced that the government has added another 80 buses to the People’s Bus Service fleet, which include 30 hybrid and 50 electric vehicles.

With the addition of 80 new buses, the city’s fleet now comprises 300 buses, including 18 Pink Buses, said a statement issued today.

The chief minister made these remarks while speaking at the inauguration ceremony of a fleet of 80 buses at Quiad-e-Azam mausoleum.

“Private vehicles, mainly motorcycles and cars, make up about 84 per cent of the total number of registered vehicles,” CM Baqar said, adding that the growth rate for private vehicles is over four per cent, which means that there are now over 1,000 new vehicles being added to the streets of Karachi each day.

Justice Baqar pointed out that there are more than 12,000 public vehicles, including buses, minibuses, and coaches, operating on 267 routes in the city.

However, the number of buses has been declining steadily, and as of 2017, less than 5,000 buses were serving fewer than 100 routes. He emphasised that a city as big as Karachi should have at least 15,000 modern buses.

Owing to the lack of intra-city public transport, the Sindh government and NRTC signed an agreement in October 2021 for the supply, operation, and construction of the Sindh Intra-District People’s Bus Service Project, the CM said.

The Sindh Peoples Intra-District Project is a government-to-government (G2G) initiative between the Sindh government and NRTC. It was launched in June 2022 and is the first-ever Intra-City Public Transport Project operating in mixed traffic, especially in Karachi and other cities of Sindh, such as Larkana, Hyderabad, and Sukkur.

Secretary Transport Asad Zamin briefed the chief minister about status of the buses and said currently, 204 Buses are in operation on 11 routes in Karachi, while six Buses are operating in Larkana, 12 in Hyderabad on two routes, and 10 in Sukkur.

Operation of the first Women-Exclusive Public Transport Service is already operating in the city with nine Pink Buses on R-01, and another nine Pink Buses on R-02. The Pink Buses project is operating successfully and is drawing huge recognition from all the concerned quarters.

In consideration of the fact the provincial government has increased the number of buses, an addition of 30 more buses has been made in the existing fleet.