Chandigarh Administrator Banwarilal Purohit on Monday flagged off 60 air-conditioned electric buses, in two batches, 40 of which will ply within the city.
The remaining 20 will be used on long routes.
After flagging off the buses on Monday, Purohit said that the 20 buses selected for inter-state operations was delivered to Chandigarh as part of an agreement signed in March 2022 with M/s Tata Motors. These buses will ply from ISBT-43 and ISBT-17 to Pathankot, Batala, Fatehabad, Amritsar, Abohar, Katra, Manali, Ludhiana, Shimla, Jaipur, Jhajjar and Haridwar.
These new air-conditioned buses, as per UT officials, adhere to the latest emission standards, BS-VI, and have latest electronically controlled diesel engines.
The remaining 40 intra-city buses flagged off on Monday was delivered to Chandigarh under an agreement signed with M/s Volvo Eicher in February 2022. The first lot of five buses out of these, were flagged off by Union Home Minister on July 30 this year, and have already entered commercial operations. On Monday, the remaining electric buses were flagged off and these vehicles will cover routes from New Maloya Colony to Ram Darbar and Manimajra, ISBT-43 to Manimajra and Behlana, and Maloya to Mansa Devi.
The Union government had sanctioned 80 electric buses for UT Chandigarh under Phase-II of FAME India Scheme. The first lot of 40 buses were launched last year and have entered commercial operations from November, 2021 onward.
According to the data available with The Indian Express, as many as 50 lakh passengers have travelled on electric buses that were introduced in Chandigarh last year, thereby leading to 4.28 lakh litres of diesel being saved.
On a daily basis, approximately 15,500 passengers in Chandigarh travel in the mini electric buses that were flagged off in September last year.
The electric buses, since their introduction, have quickly become the preferred choice of commute for passengers. The transport department has plans to replace all diesel buses in the Tricity with electric ones by 2027-2028.
Data obtained by The Indian Express showed that the electric buses in Chandigarh together have logged around 21.50 lakh kilometres and have saved 4.28 lakh litres of diesel till September this year.
AVERAGE PASSENGER RIDERSHIP
Chandigarh buses saw a daily average ridership of 95,000 passengers during the last year, while the electric buses saw an average of 15,500 passengers riding them daily, data showed.
