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The Capital Development Authority (CDA) is planning to launch an exclusive electric bus service for women.

If all goes as planned, the civic agency will introduce the service with 30 new pink buses.

Sources said that on the direction of the federal government and the Interior Ministry, the CDA was in the process of engaging its partners for acquiring 30 electric pink buses for the new service.

They said that the CDA will engage Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) for importing the buses, likely from China, on the same pattern of the existing 160 buses of the Electric Bus Service.

The CDA, through its contractor, has already been running an electric bus service on over 20 routes in Islamabad with a fleet of over 160 buses, with overwhelming response from citizens.

Civic agency in process of acquiring 30 electric pink buses, says official

However, sources said that it had been noticed that women and girls faced difficulty for getting space in these 60 buses during peak hours.

Therefore, it has been decided that an exclusive bus service with 30 pink buses will be introduced for women only.

“Yes, we have decided to introduce pink bus service as well. We have directed the concerned wing of the CDA to bring a summary for board and after approval of board, we will move forward to engage HIT for importing buses from China,” said a senior officer of CDA.

He said that the response of citizens to the existing bus service was overwhelming and highly encouraging, therefore, “we are going to introduce a dedicated bus service for women, which will ply on different routes,” he said.

To a query, the officer said the buses will be ply on same routes where existing bus service is in operation, but in case of a need new routes could also be added.

It is relevant to note that a few months ago the CDA had decided to start a double-decker bus service for promotion of tourism in Islamabad.

The CDA had approached HIT for a feasibility study and estimate for procuring the buses.

Initially, the CDA plans to start the service of double-decker with four buses for the city tour – a 25km trip – starting from F-9 Park and covering all important points, including Faisal Mosque, Lok Virsa and Shakarparian.

After this announcement of double-decker, the CDA recently got approval from its board and subsequently the Development Working Party (DWP) also approved the PC-I of double-decker bus service.

“I guess, the double-decker bus service will be started soon as we are at an advanced stage. But pink bus service will also be introduced as soon as possible, may be within three months,” the officer said.

Originally published in Dawn, November 11th, 2026