Awais says 121 diesel-hybrid buses arriving from China for Karachi

The shipment of the first batch of 121 diesel-hybrid buses for Karachi has begun from China. Sindh Transport Minister Syed Awais Qadir Shah said this in a statement issued on Wednesday. He explained that 121 buses had left for Karachi via cargo ships from two ports in China.

The Sindh transport department had earlier announced that diesel-hybrid buses would ply as an intra-city public transport service on over 15 routes of six districts of Karachi. The transport minister said that these buses would start plying in the city the next month.

Apart from this, the transport department has started work on the Red Line section of the bus rapid transit service as an environment-friendly mode of mass transit. This is going to be the first-ever public bus project to be launched anywhere in the province since the Pakistan Peoples Party came to power in 2008.

It is pertinent to mention that many successive provincial transport ministers in the PPP regime made announcements of launching various public bus service schemes in Karachi but these projects never materialised.