Gzb: Civic body frees up prime land

GHAZIABAD:The Ghaziabad municipal corporation Wednesday freed up from encroachments land measuring 26,310 square metres near Bonjha and proposed it for the construction of a shed and charging station for electric buses to be used for the city bus service.

According to corporation officials, the land, located in Bonjha village near the New Bus Stand and adjacent to the GT Road, is valued at about ₹105 crore.

“The land has been freed up and fencing is being done. The encroachers, on being told that they will face action, decided to free the land willingly. We are now levelling the land to make it ready for a shed and charging station for e-buses which are expected to arrive soon,” RN Pandey, the municipal corporation’s property in-charge and additional municipal commissioner, said.

Under the proposed e-bus project, the Ghaziabad city will get 50 air-conditioned electric buses which will be used for intracity transport.

The Centre’s department of heavy Industries, on August 8, sanctioned 5,595 e-buses for 64 cities for intracity and intercity travel while 600 of them were approved for 11 cities of Uttar Pradesh, including 50 for Ghaziabad.

The approval was made under the Phase 2 of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles (FAME-India) scheme in order to push for clean mobility. The department had earlier said the buses will run about 4 billion kilometres during their contract period and are expected to save cumulatively about 1.2 billion litres of fuel during that period, which will result in the avoidance of 2.6 million tonnes of carbon emission.

The UP cabinet, in a meeting held in Lucknow on October 1, had approved the e-bus project estimated to cost about ₹965 crore for providing about 700 buses in 14 cities, including Ghaziabad.

The cabinet also approved the operation of buses under open tender and on a public-privatepartnership basis. Of the 14 cities, Ghaziabad, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Meerut and Mathura-Vrindavan are to receive 50 air-conditioned e-buses each, while bigger cities such as Lucknow, Agra and Kanpur will get 100 e-buses each.

Other cities such as Moradabad and Aligarh, are to get 25 buses each under the scheme.