DTC BOARD NOD FOR 1,500 MORE ELECTRIC BUSES

HT Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) Board on Friday approved the induction of 1,500 low-floor electric buses in its fleet. These buses and another batch of 300 e-buses, which have already started arriving, are the DTC’S first procurement in at least a decade since the Commonwealth Games in 2010.

This month, at least 100 e-buses are likely to be rolled out in two batches of 50 each, senior transport officials said. These 100 buses are a part of the 300 e-buses ordered by the DTC and two have already been pressed into service.

Transport minister and DTC Board chairman Kailash Gahlot said, “With the induction of electric buses on such a large scale, augmentation of infrastructure and demand incentives to consumers, we don’t intend to leave any stone unturned in making Delhi the EV capital of the world.”

“Over the past nine to 10 months, we have held rigorous meetings to understand the shortcomings in DTC’S tender documents and plugged the gaps. I have personally been monitoring the entire bus procurement plan and we finally have good news. After more than a decade, DTC will finally roll out 1,800 new buses over a span of 20 months from now,” said Gahlot.

He said the entire batch of 300 e-buses will be pressed into service by the end of December this year. As for the remaining buses, the minister said the Delhi government has been sanctioned 1,500 e-buses by the central government. The DTC Board had already approved the procurement of 921 buses under FAME-II (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicle) category and the remaining 579 buses under non FAME-II category. For the 579 buses in the NON-FAME category, the government will provide a subsidy of ₹262.04 crore, on par with FAME-II subsidy.