KARACHI: The Sindh government on Thursday announced free shuttle service to connect passengers of Orange Line with Green Line as part of the plan to merge the two public transport services of Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS).

The decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the transport department, which was chaired by Sindh Transport Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon.

The meeting discussed the ongoing and upcoming projects of transport and reviewed the progress of development of BRT Red Line.

“It’s time to initiate the proposed merger of Green Line and Orange Line,” a statement issued after the meeting quoted the provincial minister as saying. “For this, a free shuttle service would be launched after Eid. The service would be available from Annu Bhai Park to Jinnah University for Women. This would benefit a large number of people who want to avail both services for their regular movement,” he added.

The buses will ply between Annu Bhai Park and Jinnah University after Eid

Sources privy to the original plan of the merger of the two BRT projects claimed that the shuttle service between the two stop of Green and Orange lines was a kind of alternative and not the one which was initially proposed.

“The original plan says that the Orange Line service would ultimately culminate at Nagan Chowrangi, using infrastructure of Green Line,” said a source.

“For that, an interchange would be developed at Board Office bus stop allowing use of Green Line tracks to the Orange Line buses to move on and culminate at Nagan Chowrangi. Since that project may take time to start and then complete, the government has come up with a makeshift arrangement to introduce shuttle service for the merger of the two projects,” the source added.

In October 2023, caretaker chief minister Syed Maqbool Baqar had in a meeting at the CM House expressed displeasure that despite having BRT system since December 2021, hundreds of thousands of people in Karachi were still deprived of availing the full benefit of the multi-billion-rupee service because of non-execution of a planned merger of two major lines — Green and Orange.

The caretaker CM was informed that the delay had kept around over a million Karachiites away from enjoying an economical and comfortable travelling service.

Meanwhile, Mr Memon told the meeting that the federal government had promised 300 buses to Sindh government worth Rs18 billion under public sector development programme (PSDP). The federal government, he said, would be pursued to ensure its commitment.

The transport minister also blamed the caretaker administration of ignoring the Red Line project which caused further delay in the development of the BRT system. “But we are now focusing on Red Line and have expedited the process,” he said.

“The Sindh government is now initiating project to launch intercity bus services. For that, some 500 buses would be imported. The Sindh government plans to launch bus service from Karachi to Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas to Hyderabad, Larkana to Sukkur and Larkana to Qambar Shahdadkot,” he added.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2024