KARACHI: The city administration on Wednesday approved the running of a fleet of 200 air-conditioned buses on 14 different routes in the city.

The Sindh transport ministry has signed an agreement with a large private bus service provider that would translate into running of 1,000 buses in the provincial capital in the next few months.

Commissioner Iftikhar Shallwani, who presided over a meeting of the Regional Transport Authority board, told Dawn that the first fleet of buses would be running on the roads of Karachi within the next two months in the first phase of the plan.

Official sources said that the meeting approved 14 routes for 200 new buses and directed the RTA to finalise the routes after consultation with all stakeholders.

An agreement was recently signed between the transport minister under the Peoples Bus Service and the Daewoo Pakistan Express Bus Service Ltd under which 1,000 buses would be running on various routes of Karachi.

The new buses, which will run on CNG, will cater to the city’s 40 routes and each route would not be longer than 15 kilometres.

The routes allowed by the RTA board included from Landhi (Babar Market) to Baldia, Surjani Town to Korangi, Landhi (Quaidabad) to Surjani, Gulshan-i-Maymar to Tower, Landhi to Lea Market, Gulshan-i-Hadeed to Lucky Star, Landhi (Bhains Colony) to Sadder, Malir Cantt to Tower, Malir Khokhrapar to Tower, North Karachi 7D to Tower, Shah Faisal Colony to Fisheries, LERP Colony to Dockyard, Taiser Town to Fisheries and Dawood Chowrangi to Tower.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2019