New Delhi: The central government next week is likely to issue the tender for the first batch of 3,000 electric buses under the PM-eBus Sewa scheme announced in August, ThePrint has learnt.
The ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) has received proposals from five states for over 3,000 buses.
“We are finalising the details and will most likely come out with the tender next week. The scheme has been approved by the Cabinet. Right now, we are taking internal permissions to come out with the first tender,” said a senior ministry official.
The Rs 57,613-crore PM-eBus Sewa scheme, under which the central government will provide financial support of Rs 20,000 crore for operations of 10,000 electric buses, is mainly for cities with poor or no public transport. The scheme will also support green mobility infrastructure.
Speaking at the 16th Urban Mobility India conference in New Delhi Friday, housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri highlighted the central government’s efforts to overhaul urban transport in the country and said, “A beginning in this direction has been made through initiatives, such as FAME-I, FAME-II and PM-eBus Sewa Scheme. The PM-e-bus Sewa scheme will augment city bus operations; while prioritising cities that lack organised bus services.”
FAME stands for ‘Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles’.
The scheme was approved by the Union cabinet in mid-August, and weeks later MoHUA issued guidelines for the rollout of the first phase of the scheme.
The ministry plans to float tenders for all 10,000 buses in the next three to four months, said a senior ministry official.
According to the guidelines, 169 cities are eligible to apply. They will be ranked on five parameters — deficit of buses, availability of bus depots, availability of power supply, earnings per kilometre, and scrapping of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) buses.
Cities with high bus demand, ample land or ready bus depots, or power infrastructure agreements with discoms for e-buses will get a high score.
Addressing media persons on the sidelines of the conference, secretary, MoHUA Manoj Joshi said, “The urban mobility policy is a broad framework and PM-eBus Sewa is one of the many interventions. Metro, RRTS (Regional Rapid Transit System), etc., are also part of the policy framework.”
The ministry will soon also come out with the guidelines for the second part of the PM-eBus Sewa scheme, which is about the Green Urban Mobility Initiative (GUMI), said senior officials.
Under GUMI, cities will be provided financial assistance to implement the National Common Mobility Card (NCMC)-based Automatic Fare Collection System (AFCS) and bus priority infrastructure, among other things.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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