Milli Bus

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A Tata Millie Bus in Kabul, 1982 Vadim Chuprina-Kabul VADIM CHUPRINA (c) Kabul 05.jpg
A Tata Millie Bus in Kabul, 1982
The back of a Millie Bus in Kabul, 1978 Kabul, 1978 (center).jpg
The back of a Millie Bus in Kabul, 1978

Milli Bus (Pashto/Persian: ملي بس, National Bus), also spelt Millie Bus, is a government-run bus service operating across Afghanistan. Operations are managed by the Afghan Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. [1]

Pashto Indo-Iranian language spoken in Afghanistan

Pashto, sometimes spelled Pukhto, is the language of the Pashtuns. It is known in Persian literature as Afghāni (افغانی) and in Hindustani literature as Paṭhānī. Speakers of the language are called Pashtuns/Pakhtuns/Pathans and sometimes Afghans. It is an Eastern Iranian language, belonging to the Indo-European family. Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan and it is the second-largest regional language of Pakistan, mainly spoken in the west and northwest of the country. In Pakistan, it is the majority language of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the northern districts of Balochistan. Along with Dari Persian, Pashto is the main language among the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto-speakers is estimated to be 45–60 million people worldwide.

Persian language Western Iranian language

Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is a pluricentric language primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and some other regions which historically were Persianate societies and considered part of Greater Iran. It is written right to left in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script.

Afghanistan A landlocked south-central Asian country

Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in South-Central Asia. Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east; Iran in the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north; and in the far northeast, China. Its territory covers 652,000 square kilometers (252,000 sq mi) and much of it is covered by the Hindu Kush mountain range, which experiences very cold winters. The north consists of fertile plains, while the south-west consists of deserts where temperatures can get very hot in summers. Kabul serves as the capital and its largest city.

Contents

Operations

The Milli Bus Enterprise, which runs the service, operates services primarily in Kabul, along with services in other areas including the Panjshir Province, Parwan, Kandahar, and Maidan Wardak. [2]

Kabul Metropolis and municipality in Afghanistan

Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan, located in the eastern section of the country. It is also a municipality, forming part of the greater Kabul Province. According to estimates in 2015, the population of Kabul is 4.635 million, which includes all the major ethnic groups of Afghanistan. Rapid urbanization had made Kabul the world's 75th largest city.

Panjshir Province Province in Afghanistan

Panjshir is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country. The province is divided into seven districts and contains 512 villages. As of 2018, the population of Panjshir province is about 371,902. Bazarak serves as the provincial capital. A report says more than 700,000 people of Panjshir province living outside of this province, particularly located in Kabul city of Afghanistan.

Kandahar City in Afghanistan

Kandahār or Qandahār is the second-largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 557,118. Kandahar is located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of 1,010 m (3,310 ft). It is the capital of Kandahar Province, and also the center of the larger cultural region called Loy Kandahar. In 1709, Mirwais Hotak made the region an independent kingdom and turned Kandahar into the capital of the Hotak dynasty. In 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Durrani dynasty, made Kandahar the capital of the Afghan Empire.

Milli buses are among the cheapest mode of transport in Kabul, often resulting in overcrowding during peak hours. [3]

History

Milli Bus dates back to the late 1920s. In 1979 the company also operated a trolleybus system. The infrastructure of Millie Bus including parking lots, workshops and administrative sections were destroyed after 1992 due to the outbreak of civil war in Kabul. It was reported that in 2001, after the Taliban regime ended, only 50 buses were operating in Kabul. [4] Around 1000 buses were received as aid from India, Iran, Japan, and Pakistan over a period of a decade after the downfall of the erstwhile Taliban government. [5] In 2014, it was reported that many of these buses were not operational as they had fallen into disrepair and since most of these buses were imported, the lack of spare parts hindered their repair operations. [6] Under the National Institution Building Project of the United Nations Development Fund, a maintenance department was established and officers and engineers were given training in maintenance of buses as well as other fields such as drivers training by Indian automotive major Tata Motors. [7]

The Kabul trolleybus system was a public transport service in Kabul, the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. The system was built by the Czechoslovak Elektrizace železnic Praha (Electrification of railways, Prague) from 1976. The service launched on February 9, 1979 with 25 Škoda 9TrH23 trolleybuses, eventually rising to 86 vehicles by 1988, of which 80 were in operation. Operated by the state-owned Millie Bus, it used the same branding and a light-blue and white livery. Most of the trolleybuses were driven by women.

India Country in South Asia

India, also known as the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh largest country by area and with more than 1.3 billion people, it is the second most populous country as well as the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, while its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.

Tata Motors Limited, formerly Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company(TELCO), is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is a subsidiary of Tata Group, an Indian conglomerate. Its products include passenger cars, trucks, vans, coaches, buses, sports cars, construction equipment and military vehicles.

In 2015 Millie Bus operations in Kabul was the subject of a documentary by Ariana Television Network. [8]

For the American-based Afghan television channel, see Ariana Afghanistan

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References

  1. ↑ World Bank: Policy Paper 1.1: Corporatisation of MOT Truck and Bus Operations. April 2003.
  2. ↑ "Milli Bus Enterprise Must Be Revived To Avoid Overcrowding On Kabul Roads". Kabul. Bakhtar News Agency. 1 June 2014. Retrieved Dec 18, 2014.
  3. ↑ Siddiqui, Abdul (1 March 2011). "Crowded roads force Millie Bus to suspend 165 buses". Kabul: Pajhwok Afghan News . Retrieved Dec 18, 2014.
  4. ↑ "Rebuilding Afghanistan-India at Work" (PDF). Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. August 2005. p. 28. Retrieved Dec 19, 2014.
  5. ↑ Zakiri, Ghulam (6 March 2013). "Delhi pledges 1,000 buses in aid to Kabul". Pajhwok Afghan News . Kabul. Retrieved Dec 18, 2014.
  6. ↑ Kohistani, Shukriya (20 October 2014). "90pc Millie Buses not operational, MoTCA". The Kabul Times. Retrieved Dec 18, 2014.
  7. ↑ "Afghanistan National Institution Building Project (NIBP) First Quarter Project Progress Report" (PDF). United Nations Development Programme. 2011. Retrieved Dec 19, 2014.
  8. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDlEFFVoJbg
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