Milli Bus (
Pashto
Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani ().
Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...
/
Persian: ملي بس, ''National Bus''), also spelt Millie Bus, is a government-run bus service operating across
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
. Operations are managed by the
Afghan Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation.
Operations
The ''Milli Bus Enterprise'', which runs the service, operates services primarily in
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into #Districts, 22 municipal dist ...
, along with services in other areas including the
Panjshir Province
Panjshir ( Dari: , literally "Five Lions," also spelled as Panjsher) is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country containing the Panjshir Valley. The province is divided into seven distri ...
,
Parwan
Parwan (Dari: ), also spelled Parvan, is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. It has a population of about 751,000. The province is multi-ethnic and mostly rural society. The province is divided into ten districts. The town of Imam Abu Hanif ...
,
Kandahar
Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118. It is the c ...
, and
Maidan Wardak
Maidan Wardak ( Pashto: ; Dari: ), also called Wardag or Wardak, is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the central region of Afghanistan. It is divided into eight districts and has a population of approximately 500,00 The capit ...
.
Milli buses are among the cheapest mode of transport in Kabul, often resulting in overcrowding during peak hours.
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.
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.
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.
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
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
n automotive major
Tata Motors
Tata Motors Limited is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing company, headquartered in Mumbai, India, which is part of the Tata Group. The company produces passenger cars, trucks, vans, coaches, buses.
Formerly known as Tata Eng ...
.
In 2015 Millie Bus operations in Kabul was the subject of a documentary by
Ariana Television Network.
[Archived a]
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine
References
{{Transport in Afghanistan
Bus operating companies
Bus transport in Afghanistan