What happened
Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has approved the extension of the province’s electric bus service to tehsil level, with 1,500 buses planned for 91 tehsils. ProPakistani reported on 9 September that the approval, given at a meeting in Lahore, also covers dedicated depots in each tehsil. The Express Tribune reported that the meeting was of the Transport and Mass Transit Department.
Tehsil-level operations are scheduled to begin in January 2027, with the first batch of buses expected in Lahore that month, ProPakistani said. The province is aiming to have 3,000 electric buses running across Punjab by June 2027. Both outlets quoted a target of completing the first phase “by September”, without giving a year.
How the buses are allocated
The Tribune listed allocations across nine divisional districts: Multan 169 buses for nine tehsils, Sahiwal 87 for four, Dera Ghazi Khan 63 for ten, Bahawalpur 215 for 11, Faisalabad 202 for 12, Sargodha 198 for 14, Gujranwala 125 for seven, Gujrat 122 for eight and Rawalpindi 219 for 16. ProPakistani separately named further districts approved for additional buses, among them Lahore, Muzaffargarh, Jhang, Rahim Yar Khan, Attock, Okara, Sialkot, Murree and Sheikhupura.
The expansion forms part of a larger plan. The Tribune said the government envisages 5,000 electric buses across the province over five years, and that Punjab has begun assembling electric buses locally.
The fleet today
According to the Tribune, 612 electric buses are already operating in various districts. Another 192, including some for Multan, are expected to start within days, 189 new buses are ready for launch, and 488 buses are due from China later in September. The Punjab Mass Transit Authority estimates that about 900,000 people use public transport in the province each day, including more than 300,000 on the Orange Line and about 140,000 on the Metrobus, the newspaper reported.
Why it matters
Moving electric buses into smaller tehsil towns, beyond the large cities where mass transit has been concentrated, widens the plan’s reach at a time when fuel costs have been a point of political friction; KhabarWire has reported on Jamaat-i-Islami’s campaign against the petroleum levy and on the government’s decision to fix fuel prices daily. Electric buses may also help with air quality; Lahore’s readings stayed in the unhealthy range earlier this year, and the same meeting ordered pre-emptive steps ahead of the expected smog season in November, the Tribune said.
What remains unclear
Neither report gave fares, the cost of the programme or its funding source, nor specific routes. The Tribune’s district list accounts for fewer than the full 1,500 buses, and it did not say where the balance will be deployed. Whether the January start and the June 2027 target hold will depend on deliveries of the buses expected from China and on the progress of local assembly.
