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mog has become a tragic marker of Lahore’s winter. Every year, the city of over 13 million residents turns grey with pollutants blurring its skyline. Every year a number of people, including children, end up in hospitals reporting respiratory problems.
The provincial government has faced its fair share of criticism for its failure to address the issue and provide relief.
This year, too, the authorities have been sharing mitigation strategies to cope with the smog. The Lahore Waste Management Company has has deployed 16 mechanical washers, 50 regular washers and 400 workers for road washing and water sprinkling. The citizens have been told to wear face masks. Health professionals have advised children, the elderly and people with pre-existing respiratory or heart conditions to take suitable precautions and reduce outdoor exposure. The police are conducting a crackdown on various kinds of behaviours contributing to smog.
The government has also rolled out electric buses, promising cleaner air and reduced reliance on fossil fuels.
Under the Green Transport initiative, the pilot project was started with 27 buses plying on a 21-kilometre route, aiming to serve around 17,000 commuters a day. By September 2025, another 35 buses had been added. In October, 40 more were launched. The eventual target is 500 buses in the first phase. According to the Transport Department 1,500 buses will be running by the end of 2025 in various districts of the Punjab.
The government’s current approach is guided by its Green Transport Initiative, an offshoot of the National Electric Vehicle Policy 2020. This framework envisions the gradual replacement of fossil-fuel vehicles across categories, including two-wheelers, three-wheelers, cars and buses. In March 2024, the chief minister formally approved the procurement of 657 eco-friendly urban buses. Plans were also announced for 2,000 EV charging stations across the Punjab in 2025. In April 2025, the cabinet approved 1,500 electric buses for big cities, including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Multan.
Pollution
Meanwhile, Lahore’s Air Quality Index regularly soars to 400 and beyond. So, have the electric buses made a visible impact on Lahore’s air quality? Will the 1,500 buses cause a noticeable change in the Punjab?
An article titled Air-Pollution and Economics: Diesel Bus Versus Electric Bus written by SR Adheesh, M Shravanth Vasisht and Sheela K Ramasesha for Divecha Centre for Climate Change says that an electric bus prevents 73 tons of CO emissions annually. It also reduces fossil fuel use by 30,000 litres per year. The reduced exposure to PM 2.5 reduces the risk for those suffering from asthma and cardiovascular diseases. With a large enough number of buses the cumulative gains lower hospital admissions, missed workdays and healthcare costs.
In Lahore, smog has been found to result from a combination of transport emissions, crop residue burning, industrial pollution and brick kilns pollution. According to the Environmental Protection Department, transport vehicles contribute 43 per cent of the particulate emissions. Electrifying public transport can therefore have a significant effect. Experts say that this should go hand-in-hand with policies on industrial emissions, fuel regulation and crop-management practices.
The scale
Dr Imran Khalid, a climate and environment expert, said that compared with the magnitude and scale of the pollution in Lahore, 67 electric buses are barely a drop in the bucket.
“You can’t expect measurable improvement simply by introducing electric buses. This is just one part of the puzzle that requires a number of pieces to align together including introduction of cleaner fuels, improving quality of vehicles on the road and eliminating other sources of air pollution.”
He proposes incentives for replacing older vehicles and consensus-building through awareness campaigns, rather than relying solely on threats of fines and factory closures .
While the chief minister has called the electric buses the first step toward a pollution-free Punjab, experts say meaningful progress will require a lot more. They urge phasing out diesel vehicles, linking charging stations to solar power and integrating routes and ticketing with the Metro bus and Orange Line systems.
Dr Khalid also says that while electric buses eliminate tailpipe emissions, substantially reducing local air pollution, electricity sourced from fossil fuel based plants will still cause pollution around those facilities.
“The net air quality improvement hinges on the grid’s energy mix. Reliance on fossil fuels sustains emissions of particulate matter, NOx and SO2. For meaningful progress, the electric bus initiative must be accompanied by a shift to renewable energy generation.”
In conversation with TNS, activist Ahmad Rafay Alam said electronic buses were a fantastic idea. “But to think they’ll fix air pollution on their own is being overly optimistic. Thousands of e-buses and a robust public transport network are just one part of a strategy needed to deal with air pollution.”
He said the national electric power grid still relied heavily on fossil fuels. He said that if all the proposed measures to control pollution sources are implemented in a sustainable way, it will take 5 to 10 years for a 15 to 20 per cent reduction in the overall pollution.”
Meanwhile, according to the Traffic Police, Lahore has approximately 4.2 million motorcycles and 6.2 million other vehicles.
Public transport
Talking to TNS, an official of Punjab Transport Company said that currently there are 67 operational electric busses in Lahore. Besides there are 188 Speedo (diesel) busses, 64 Metro buses that also run on diesel and ten older diesel buses mostly on routes out of the city and 53 vans. Environmental activists say that the number of vans is much higher. Some of those are apparently not on the PTC radar.
“Qingqi rikshaws are the priority transport for many. These are easily available and have the price advantage. Then there are vans that provide pick and drop services for schools etc. There are hundreds of such vans,” said Nida Afzal, a climate activist.
About the electric buses, she said the policy making as well as execution should be participative and accountable. Else, the project will lose steam and wither like some earlier public transport initiatives.
Success stories
Experience in other cities and countries has shown that, when rolled out systematically, electric buses can dramatically cut urban pollution. A good example is China. A World Bank report, Electrification of Public Transport: A Case Study of Shenzhen Bus Group, says that China has achieved large-scale electrification of urban buses. Shenzhen, which in 2017 became the first city globally to have fully electrified its bus fleet, achieved similar success with its taxis two years later. But China did not just buy buses, it built an entire ecosystem, including local battery manufacturing, renewable-energy charging grids and maintenance facilities.
The report says that the transition to electrification requires coordination and policy synergy across various levels of governments as well as different departments within the governments. Private players especially in vehicle manufacturing, charging and new technology are also critical. The ultimate users of the service are passengers, who should not be neglected. Shenzhen’s success in electrifying its entire bus fleet in a short period of time was a joint effort by private and public entities.
The report mentions that electrification of public transport provides an opportunity to achieve multiple objectives: low-carbon urban development, reduction of local air pollution, creation of jobs, and higher acceptance of public transport by residents.
However, owing to high capital costs, rapid evolution of product technologies, limited operational experience and lack of trained personnel, the adoption of electric buses has been slow worldwide.
The way forward
Activist Rida Rashid says, “If our decisions were driven by research… we wouldn’t be choking every winter. Smog isn’t a seasonal event, it’s a yearlong governance failure. To overcome the air pollution crisis our governance has to include data, transit planning, fuel standards, enforcement and most importantly accountability.”
The chief minister has described the electric buses as the first step toward a pollution-free Punjab. However, experts say meaningful progress requires much more. They urge phasing out diesel vehicles, linking charging stations to solar power and integrating routes and ticketing with the Metro bus and Orange Line systems.
The writer is areporter for The News International