The Maharashtra Government has received a proposal from the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) for the allocation of 150 electric buses under the PM E-Bus program of the Central Government.
The commencement of the PM E-Bus initiative, in which the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs plans to purchase 10,000 e-buses, was previously announced. The action aims to phase out buses that utilize conventional gasoline, which are a significant source of pollution.
The e-buses proposal was cleared by Municipal Commissioner and Administrator Dr Abhijeet Chaudhary and forwarded to Urban Development Department for further processingAs per the procedure, NMC has to submit a formal proposal to the State Government that will then submit comprehensive demand of all cities to the Central Government. NMC provides city transport service ‘Aapli Bus’ and at present they have a fleet of 528 buses. This includes 362 diesel buses such as 167 standard, 150 Midland 45 mini, as well as 70 retrofitted CNG buses and 96 e-buses.
At present, the policy of shifting the public bus serv- ice from conventional diesel fuel to non-conventional fuel is being implemented by the Transport Department of NMC.
Under this, e-buses have been included in the fleet of ‘Aapli Bus’. Apart from tack- ling the pollution, the NMC is also going to save a lot on fuel after switching over to electric buses. Plus the reg- ular repair bill is also going to reduce drastically.
NMC will get 150 e-buses on the basis of population (20 to 40 lakhs). In urban areas for running them on PPP model, here a private operator is going to be provided money on a per kilometre basis for a period of 10 years or till March 2037, whichev- er is earlier.
The State Government is going to stand guarantee for payment to operators running city buses. Around 60 per cent of the project cost for infrastructure development of bus depots will be pro- vided to the city for sanc- tioned number of e-buses till March 2027.
The civic body will provide land for depot development and it will receive 100 per cent funding for electricity infrastructure from Centre by March 2027, as per criteria to be decided in consultation with the Union Ministry of Power. Before launching e-buses, cities will have to ensure adequate power/ infrastructure capacity and other requisites incor- porated in the guidelines of the Centre’s PM e-Bus scheme.