Ghaziabad likely to get 50 electric buses in three months

A fleet of 50 electric buses may commence operation in the city in the next three months, officials said on Tuesday

A fleet of 50 electric buses may commence operation in the city in the next three months, officials said on Tuesday. They also said that the work for the construction of a maintenance depot for the e-bus project is almost complete.

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The low-floor air-conditioned e-buses will operate on 10 routes within the municipal limits, the officials said.

“We are expecting that 50 buses for Ghaziabad may arrive in the next two-three months. At present, work for tendering of the ticketing system for e-buses is going on. Once it gets complete, we are hopeful that the buses will be delivered. In our division, we have 50 e-buses each for Ghaziabad and Meerut,” said Surendra Singh, divisional commissioner, Meerut.

The Ghaziabad city at present has no government-run bus network for intra-city commuting.

The officials of the Ghaziabad municipal corporation said that the maintenance depot has been developed over an area of about 25,000 square metres at Akbarpur-Behrampur (near Vijay Nagar) adjacent to NH-9.

“The construction work (for maintenance depot) is almost finished. The depot will serve as a major point for the maintenance and charging of the e-buses,” said MS Tanwar, municipal commissioner.

For the operation of e-buses, the corporation officials have chalked out 10 different routes within the municipal limits.

The routes include Surya Nagar to Indirapuram and further to Noida City Centre; Govindpuram to UP Gate on NH-9; Shalimar Garden to Ghaziabad railway station; Vijay Nagar to Noida City Centre; Anand Vihar border to Mohan Nagar and further up to ALT Centre, Raj Nagar; Dilshad Garden to Mohan Nagar and further to Old Bus Stand and Govindpuram; and Mohan Nagar to Raj Nagar Extension which will further go to NH-9.

In August 2019, the Union ministry of heavy industries had approved the sanction of 5,595 e-buses to 64 cities across the country for intra-city and inter-city operations. Out of 5,595 e-buses, 600 were approved for 11 cities of Uttar Pradesh, including 50 for Ghaziabad city. The approval was made under the phase 2 of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid Electric Vehicles scheme in order to push for clean mobility in public transportation.

The 5,595 e-buses are proposed to run about four billion kilometres during their contract period and expected to cumulatively save about 1.2 billion litres of traditional fuel that will help reduce 846 million tonnes of CO2 (carbon dioxide) emission by 2030.