Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is all set to roll out a fleet of 32 new electric buses on August 15. Of the 32 e-buses, 15 will be air-conditioned and fares for all buses will remain unchanged, according to a report.
According to sources in NMC’s Transport Department, these e-buses will be conductor-less and have a cashless facility. Integrated with a tap-in and tap-out facility, trial runs of the e-buses will be carried out on August 5, sources said.
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These e-buses will operate on specific routes like Butibori-Khaparkheda. For cashless travel, the NMC has tied up with Chalo app service, which will be available through Chalo mobile app and Aapli Bus Chalo smart card, the sources said, adding configuration of the app-based system is on.Presently the NMC has 10 e-buses, which it had received recently from a Hyderabad-based company. Another seven will arrive within a couple of days. These were part of the 40 e-buses being procured under the Central Government scheme.
NMC sources further said that besides this, NSSCDCL’s 15 air-conditioned buses too will be joining Aapli Bus fleet before August 15. The NSSCDCL (Nagpur Smart and Sustainable City Development Corporation Limited) has also placed another order for 25 more e-buses. The NMC is expecting five of the 144 e-buses for which order was placed with an Uttar Pradesh based company. Barring the e-buses procured from Hyderabad, all e-buses NMC is procuring will be air-conditioned, the sources said.
Presently, the NMC has a charging station at its depot in Wardhaman Nagar, while the work for setting up another three is on. With the help of NSSCDCL, the NMC is also planning to set up charging stations on its premises in 13 different locations across the city. Currently, the NMC is operating around 350 buses. With the induction of e-buses, the NMC will phase out 167 standard buses (procured under Jawaharlal Nehru National Renewable Mission), which are already in bad shape.
Though NMC has converted 70 diesel operated standard buses into CNG, it is unable to run them on city roads due to lack of availability of the green fuel. Scrapping of the buses will increase the passenger load on operational buses as orders placed for e-buses are midi having 18 passengers seating capacity, while standard buses have 41 seats. So, in future, the NMC plans to procure 25 standard e-buses, the sources said.
Replacement of diesel buses with electric ones will reduce NMC’s expenditure on city bus operations. Currently, it is spending around Rs 15 crore per month. NMC is paying between Rs 54.05 per km and Rs 75.66 km to the operators, whereas its expenditure on electric buses will be around Rs 47.21 per km.
