Punjab will pay you Rs 20,000 in green credits for cycling 75 km

The Punjab government is offering green credits worth Rs 20,000 to people who cycle at least 75 kilometres and record the rides through the official tracker app. Registration is open at greencredit.punjab.gov.pk.

The scheme started in Lahore and is being extended across Punjab.

How it works, step by step

1. Register on greencredit.punjab.gov.pk with your CNIC and mobile number.
2. Install the CM Punjab Green Credit Program Tracker App. The app records your ride using your phone's location, so the distance has to be logged live. A route you cycled last week without the app does not count.
3. Cycle 75 kilometres in total. It does not have to be one ride. Fifteen rides of five kilometres each get you there, which is a fortnight of commuting to a nearby office or market.
4. Submit proof. Upload a photograph of your bicycle and your trip record through the MRV form on the portal. MRV stands for measurement, reporting and verification, the standard used for carbon credit schemes.
5. Wait for verification. The credits are issued after the department checks the submission.

What green credits actually are

This is the part worth reading twice. Green credits are not cash handed over at a counter. They are a tradable environmental credit: the province is measuring the carbon you did not emit by leaving the car or the bike at home, and issuing you a credit for it. The Rs 20,000 is the stated value of the credit for 75 kilometres.

How and when a citizen converts that credit into money, and whether it is paid out, offset against a government fee or sold into a carbon market, is set by the programme rules on the portal. Read them before you count the money.

Why Punjab is doing it

Lahore's air is the reason. The city runs through the worst of its smog season from late October to January, and road transport is one of the largest local contributors. Paying people to swap short car trips for bicycle trips is cheap compared with almost anything else the province could do about it.

Pakistan's own environmental scorecard moved this week: the country climbed 22 places to 157th of 177 in the 2026 Environmental Performance Index published by Yale, with the Punjab environment department crediting air quality monitoring and emissions testing.

The money angle

At Rs 389.14 a litre for petrol, a car doing 12 kilometres to the litre costs about Rs 32 per kilometre to run. Seventy five kilometres of driving is roughly Rs 2,430 of fuel. So if you genuinely replace car trips with bicycle trips to earn the credit, the fuel you save is on top of the credit itself. Work out your own car's cost per kilometre on the fuel cost calculator.

That is the honest case for signing up. The credit is the bonus, the petrol you do not buy is the real saving.