City finally gets modern transport

In a city that has long been bereft of quality transport, commuters can perhaps breathe a sigh of relief as Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari inaugurated the intra-district Peoples Bus Service on Monday. The aim of the mass transit system is to facilitate locals of Karachi and provide the metropolis with a desperately-needed public transport infrastructure.

The PPP chief was flanked by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Transport Minister Sharjeel Memon and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani, among others. Under the Peoples Intra District Bus Service project, around 240 air-conditioned buses, imported from China, will ply on seven routes in Karachi.

The project will commence operations on Route 1 from Model Colony to Tower, covering a distance of around 29.5 kilometres and stop at 38 stations. In the first phase, seven routes have been finalised for Karachi on which 240 buses will operate.

As per the plan, the government will start the same buses next week from North Karachi to Indus Hospital (Korangi) and the route will cover a distance of 32.9km. The other routes include Nagan Chowrangi to Singer Chowrangi (Korangi Industrial Area) (33km), North Karachi to Dockyard (30.4km), Surjani Town to PAF Masroor (28.2km), Gulshan-e-Bihar (Orangi Town) to Singer Chowrangi (29km), and Mosamiyat to Baldia Town (28.9km).

"The buses will be run under a public-private partnership," an official privy to the development revealed.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, along with Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, provincial ministers Sharjeel Inam Memon and Saeed Ghani, KMC Administrator Murtaza Wahab and party MPAs travelled in the bus on Sharah-e-Faisal to review the arrangements.

Ahead of the inauguration, Karachi Administrator Murtaza Wahab told the media that the bus service had become operational from Monday and would run from Malir Halt to Tower. "The air-conditioned buses will have free Wi-Fi and wheelchairs for the differently-abled. "The minimum fare will be Rs25 and maximum Rs50," Wahab stated.

Sharjeel Inam Memon, while speaking to the media, said that the government has started running the first lot of the buses and the next batch of 130 buses will be arriving at Karachi port. "We will ban the old buses in Karachi which are causing different kinds of pollution."

He said after Karachi, the provincial government's next target is Hyderabad where state-of-the-art BRTs will be launched as its paperwork is already underway.

Lack of public transport

The sprawling urban metropolis of Karachi lacks a well-established mass transit system to this day. It is private buses, rickshaws and ride-hailing services which account for the most accessible form of public transport. As per rough estimates, transporters in the provincial capital have bumped their fares by at least Rs30 to Rs50, depending on the distance. Owing to this, an average person's monthly transport bill has reportedly gone up from Rs1,800 to Rs3,000, a price too steep for many.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, several bus commuters have hailed the latest service as great news for citizens of Karachi. "For the last three decades, we had been hearing about the new induction of public services, but this year, we have finally seen it on the roads," said Ghazi Khan who works in a semi-government department.

"We had also seen some buses in Mustafa Kamal's tenure, but after a few months, they went missing," he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2022.