ISLAMABAD, Dec 14: London’s 300 ‘purpose-built Black Cabs’ will be finally running on the roads of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad within the first quarter next year. Each cab will cost Rs6 million and passengers will pay Rs11.40 per km, says one of the sponsors.

This is part of the Prime Transport Limited’s plan to introduce about 7,000 vehicles in Pakistan in two years and then manufacture at least 6,000 cabs and export half of them to the Middle East, Africa and Asia, excluding China and Central Asian states, Dawood Khan, the chief executive officer of the PTL, told Dawn on Thursday.

The project had became controversial early this year when the government had announced to allow duty- and tax-free import of 300 purpose-built cabs under straight-jacket specifications that basically described the London-based Black Cabs and provided about 15 days for bids. The entire project involved $850 million investment.

Nobody had responded, not even the PTL that had originally conceived the project and had signed a memorandum of understanding with the London Transport International (LTI) to import and then manufacture Black Cabs in Pakistan. As a result, Industries and Production Minister Jehangir Khan Tarin announced on June 22 that the facility of duty- and tax-free import would no more be applicable.

Mr Dawood said his company had not submitted the bid in protest against the government decision to seek bids for import of 300 cabs because his company already had licence from the LTI and had been discussing it with the government since 2001.

He said his company would not import its initial lot of 300 cabs duty free but these would be exempted from sales tax as approved by the Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet last week. The import would attract a normal 20 per cent duty on completely-built units as applicable to others, he said.

Last week, the ECC had allowed tax-free import of taxis with the new name of ‘purpose-built taxis’ as the CBR recommended that import of duty- and sales tax-free taxis should be allowed.