Ghaziabad to add more electric, CNG and BS-VI buses next year

The new buses will help in reducing air pollution, officials added, saying that the UPSRTC headquarters have agreed to supply a fleet of 40 e-buses for Ghaziabad next year

The Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) is expecting a major addition of AC electric buses, CNG buses as well as BS-VI-compliant Shatabdi and Chetak buses to its ageing fleet next year, said officials on Tuesday.

Passengers disembark from an electrical bus at Ghaziabad old bus stand on Tuesday. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

The new buses will help in reducing air pollution, officials added, saying that the UPSRTC headquarters have agreed to supply a fleet of 40 e-buses for Ghaziabad next year.

The city received its first lot of 50 e-buses that are already in operation on four routes, while two more routes —Kaushambi to Dadri and Govindpuram to Sector 62, Noida — have also been added.

“About 300 e-buses will be procured by the headquarters and 40 of them will be for Ghaziabad. The process of tendering for procurement will be initiated by the headquarters soon. All the existing 50 e-buses in the first lot were delivered this year. As and when the new buses arrive, we will chalk out more routes. In addition, the state is also procuring about 750 BS-VI compliant buses for 20 regions across UP and we are expecting about 50 of them next year,” said AK Singh, UPSRTC regional manager.

The Ghaziabad region of the UPSRTC operates about 880 short and long distances buses to different cities in UP, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh from a number of terminuses such as ISBT, Kaushambi in Ghaziabad, ISBT, Kashmere Gate in Delhi and ISBT Anand Vihar, also in Delhi. It also operates 50 e-buses in Ghaziabad.

Officials said that the UPSRTC will also procure about 125 CNG buses for the NCR districts and Ghaziabad is expected to get about 50% of these.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) in its order on May 18, 2016, gave directions and also said that only CNG buses should operate from ISBT, Kaushambi in Ghaziabad. The order was delivered in connection to a petition filed by the Kaushambi Apartments Residents’ Welfare Association.

UPSRTC officials said that they are also expecting about 100 more CNG buses, which will be part of a contract with private operators.

“We are trying to get 300 more contract carriage buses and about 100 of them will run on CNG. Further, a new scheme for operation of Rajdhani buses (to operate from different districts to the state capital Lucknow) and Chetak buses (to operate in a range of 250kms) is also expected in 2023. Ghaziabad is expected to get about 10 Rajdhani (BS-VI compliant) buses and we have raised a demand for about 150 Chetak buses,” Singh added.

The Rajdhani and Chetak buses will be comfortable and will have limited stoppages, unlike the other inter-city buses, officials added.