KARACHI, Sept 25: The first batch of four CNG buses for the Urban Transport Scheme (UTS) has arrived in Karachi and will be displayed at a ceremony at Civic Centre on Friday, September 27.

There are fourteen participants of the UTS, but the Green Bus Company is the only firm among them which has brought its buses in the field even ahead of the schedule of the transport and communication department of the city government.

The Green Transport Company has imported these buses from China. The batch needs final clearance from the port. A total of 29 buses of the company will arrive in city by the end of this year. The fourteen participants of the UTS are yet to be allotted routes. The matter is expected to be finalized by the mid of the next month by a committee headed by the DCO Karachi.

The department had earlier set the target of 500 buses, but it has now been increased to 670. A summary requesting for the approval of the increase will be put forward to the Sindh cabinet soon .

Tahir Siddique of the Green Bus company said that the company has been in the transport business in Malaysia since 1989 and they intended to bring 300 large CNG buses in Karachi, for which they had already obtained the import duty exemption by the ministry of industries and production, Islamabad .

About 12000 public transport vehicles including buses, minibuses and coaches are operating in Karachi, but no new bus has been brought for the past two decades.

Many buses plying in Karachi, especially on peripheral routes, date back to the 1960s. A large number of these vehicles are operating without proper documents such as route permits and fitness certificates. The majority of drivers do not have valid driving licenses.

According to an official of the transport and communication department, these problems are expected to be checked with the success of the UTS, as the monopoly of the city’s transport mafia will be broken.—PPI