My name is Syed Irshad Hussain Bukhari and I am the president of Karachi Transport Ittehad. My elder brother came to Karachi from Abbottabad in 1948. He started to work as a driver, and then made his first investment in a taxi in 1964. We ran a taxi service for some years and in 1971, bought our first bus for Rs 38,000. This was a joint venture I had with my brothers from our personal savings. By 1976, we had acquired more buses and were running a proper transport business. I became a member of the Karachi Bus Owner’s Association in 1974, vice president in 1978 and then, general secretary in 1981, a position I still hold. In 1990, all major transport unions and associations got together to devise a system to deal with various issues. At that time, we felt that the city had grown and so had the issues. That was the birth of the Karachi Transport Ittehad (KTI) and I was elected its first president, a post that I hold to this date.
