Delhi is all set for sthe engagement of 1,000 AC low floor pure Electric Buses on its road at the end of this year. This is the largest such commitment so far by any Indian city and for any city outside of China.
The Delhi cabinet in its meeting chaired by the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal approved the Department of Transport proposal for the phase –wise engagement of 1,000 (one thousand) AC low floor pure Electric Buses in Delhi under Gross Cost Model of contracting. This is the largest such commitment so far by any Indian city and for any city outside of China.
The Delhi government is committed to providing an efficient and environment friendly mode of public transport for the residents of Delhi. Creating sufficient capacity in public transport system is the only way to reduce air pollution in Delhi and bring down the number of vehicles on the roads of Delhi to reduce congestion.
The cabinet also gave its approval to allow the Transport department to ask the prospective bidders to bring the buses with CCTV, Automatic Vehicle Tracking System (AVTS), Panic buttons and Panic alarms, as per the specification finalized by the Transport Department.
The project of engagement of 1,000 standard size (12m) low floor AC pure electric buses is under Gross cost contracting model. Decision on floating of individual RFQPs for each cluster shall be taken by the Transport Minister, depending upon the readiness of depots and the power infrastructure therein, as to which of the clusters are ready for tendering.
A subsidy of up to Rs 75 lakh per bus or 60% of cost of bus, whichever is lesser, shall be provided in three instalments and as per the modalities in FAME-I scheme along with the safeguards as prescribed by Delhi government.
The cabinet has decided that subsidy and power infrastructure up to Parent Depots, estimated to be Rs 800 crores, will be funded through the utilization of the ECC funds, presently a corpus of approximately Rs 1100 crore, subject to directions and/or orders of the Hon’ble Supreme Court on this issue.
The first set of tenders are expected to be released within a week and the first lot of electric buses are expected to hit the streets before the end of 2019.
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