The Punjab cabinet has approved the procurement of 1,000 additional green electric buses and the launch of electric bus services at the tehsil level, marking the most significant single expansion of the province’s public electric transport network since Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif inaugurated Pakistan’s first fully electric bus service in Lahore in February 2025. The decision was taken at the cabinet’s 32nd meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif, which approved the procurement of 1,000 green electric buses and the launch of electric bus services at the tehsil level, extending the network beyond district headquarters to smaller regions across the province.
The tehsil-level expansion is particularly significant because it moves Punjab’s electric bus ambitions beyond the major urban centres of Lahore, Multan, and Faisalabad into the smaller towns that form the backbone of the province’s population distribution. Earlier approvals had already seen electric buses deployed across 10 districts including Attock, Bhakkar, Hafizabad, Khanewal, Layyah, Sheikhupura, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Mandi Bahauddin, and Okara, while a comprehensive plan for 1,500 electric buses at the tehsil level had been directed by the chief minister in a separate meeting, with the free transport programme already making a strong impact on students, workers, and daily commuters across the province.
The Punjab Transport Company’s electric bus infrastructure has been steadily evolving, with Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif having earlier inaugurated the Punjab Transport Company headquarters and Electric Vehicle Command and Control Centre, where she reviewed a charging system capable of fully charging an electric bus within 105 minutes using Yutong’s 160-kilowatt system, and directed officials to transition the bus charging infrastructure to solar power while also directing the claiming of carbon credits under the Green Bus Project. The solar-powered charging directive is particularly forward-looking, as it would decouple the operating costs of the electric bus fleet from Pakistan’s grid electricity tariff, which has remained elevated and subject to periodic upward revision.
Punjab’s electric buses are equipped with GPS tracking, Wi-Fi, USB ports, and ramps for people with disabilities, with a digital wallet and card system introduced to facilitate cashless travel, and nine specialised charging stations established to support the network, with each bus capable of covering 250 kilometres on a full charge. The 1,000-bus approval brings the total pipeline of electric buses planned for Punjab well beyond 2,000 units when combined with earlier approvals, and positions the province as by far the most aggressive adopter of electric public transport in Pakistan, with a fleet scale and geographic ambition that no other provincial government has come close to matching.
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