CNG Buses Soon Be On Karachi Roads - At Last

Govt pins hopes on bank financing

KARACHI: Much-needed CNG-powered buses will start plying on 40 designated routes in the city any time during the next financial year as the ground work for the launching of the scheme has been completed in all respects, according to well-placed city government officials.
The government was now looking to the banking sector to offer financial packages to the public transport operators interested in bringing the CNG buses to the city, said sources privy to the Karachi Mass Transit Cell.

The sources said that almost every aspect of inducting the environment-friendly CNG buses under the public-private partnership had been discussed and proposed facilities documented to attract private parties to the venture. ‘Now banks are being approached for financing the exclusive CNG bus scheme on a priority basis as part of their corporate and social responsibility,’ they added.

For more than four years, government functionaries have been stressing that induction of CNG buses into the city’s public transport fleet is the best solution to the growing transport demand, travel delays, severe traffic congestion, clumsy routes, alarming levels of noise and air pollution and vehicular emission.

The Director-General of the city government’s Karachi Mass Transit Cell, Malik Zaheer-ul-Islam, told Dawn that the federal, provincial and city governments had acted jointly in this direction and completed the homework.

‘I have been working on the scheme for some year. I am now optimistic that the CNG buses will start plying on 40 designated routes any time during the next financial year,’ he said.
Recently, the federal government approved financial support on a public-private partnership basis. Interested bus operators will be offered a package that includes an interest subsidy on loans/lease amount obtained from banks or financial institutions for the procurement of CNG buses, according to Mr Islam. He said that between 500 and 1,000 CNG buses were expected to be brought to the city roads in the first phase under a special plan which would also be replicated in nine other major cities of the country.

Existing bus fleet obsolete

Public transport and mass transit facilities providing a swift and hassle-free travel to citizens has been a pressing issue of Karachi, a city of 18 million people having an urban sprawl of about 3,500 square kilometres.

It is estimated that about 11,900 mostly obsolete buses of varying sizes and shapes ply on about 255 routes, which overlap considerably with each other. The existing bus fleet is not only very old but is also insufficient for a big city like Karachi. The buses have diesel-operated engines and are responsible for the increasing environmental pollution.

According to a study conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency around 6.9 million people used public transport vehicles, 2.3 million motorcycles and 3.3 million cars in 2008.