Karachi's Green Line Bus Rapid Transit Service (BRTS) finally became operational on Saturday after almost six years since its groundbreaking.

All 80 buses of its fleet will shuttle between Surjani Town and Numaish Chowrangi. Meanwhile, the fare of one trip will range between Rs15 and Rs55.

The Green Line BRT is supposed to facilitate the travel of approximately 300,000 passengers daily.

With over 23-kilometer dedicated tracks, the bus service project offers special services for the disabled. The hybrid vehicles will be run on batteries and diesel.

In a tweet today (Saturday), Minister for Planning and Special Initiative Asad Umar said that the first bus departed from Abdullah Chowk station with passengers. From today, the eleven stations will have a four-hour service from 8 to 12 o'clock in the morning, he said.

"As announced earlier, from January 10, all the stations will start working from morning to evening," Umar tweeted.

On December 10, Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated the Green Line Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project in Karachi, thanking Sindh Infrastructure Development Company Limited (SIDCL) and parliamentarians from Karachi for pursuing the project.

He termed Karachi as Pakistan's engine of growth, saying that if Karachi prospers, then Pakistan will prosper.

He said that none of the previous governments paid any attention to Karachi's transportation system.

"I have been seeing Karachi for 50 years. We have seen it transform into a city of ruins because we did not focus on its administration," he said.

The premier noted that the city could not be transformed into a modern city until the removal of administrative flaws. "No modern city can function without modern transport," he said.

This report was first published in Business Recorder on Dec 25, 2021.