Delhi Govt Approves To Deploy 1K Electric Busses, The Most In An Indian City

In a step forward to achieve emobility, the Delhi Cabinet has now approved a proposal to deploy 1,000 low-floor electric buses in the state to counter the increasing air pollution levels.

According to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, with this, the capital became the first Indian city to have such a large number of electric buses.

This development comes in after the Arvind Kejriwal government had assured the Supreme Court in July 2018, that it would induct 1000 low floor electric buses in phases from June-July 2019.

In an attempt to boost emobility in the country, both the state and central governments have been undertaking a lot of initiatives. However, state governments had been showing more interest than the union in this regard.

Earlier this week, the Delhi government allocated INR 100 Cr ($14.08 Mn) to the state electric vehicle fund in its 2019-20 budget. It also proposed an outlay of INR 1,807 Cr to aid the implementation of the transport department’s various schemes, programmes and projects.

Delhi, which is also one of the most polluted city in India, had also announced ‘The Draft Delhi EV Policy 2018’ in November 2018 to speed up the adoption of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs). The policy is aimed at making 25% of all vehicles to be EVs by 2023.

Meanwhile, the central government just approved the second phase of EV policy, called Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME II) with an outlay of INR 10,000 Cr ($1.4 Bn) to be invested over a period of three years.

Under the second chapter of FAME, the central government has proposed that it will set up of 2,700 charging stations, with the availability of at least one charging station in a grid of 3 kmx3 km and will also emphasise on adoption of electric vehicles for public transportation use.

Similar to the union government’s mission, the states are also looking to deploy electric vehicles for public transportation to ensure cleaner and greener mobility.

Apart from Delhi, Kerala Government has also announced its plans to have one Mn electric vehicles by the year 2022 while presenting its 2019 budget.

Also, the Uttar Pradesh government plans to operate nearly 580 electric buses in nine cities on a contractual basis. Out of the entire fleet, about 100 buses will be operating across Agra and Mathura which fall under the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ).