Cabinet approves engagement of 1,000 Low Floor AC pure electric buses

OFFICE OF THE TRANSPORT MINISTER
GOVT OF NCT OF DELHI

Dated : 02/03/2019

Cabinet approves engagement of 1,000 Low Floor AC pure electric buses for Delhi

·         Delhi alone will have more electric buses than all other cities of India put together
·         Delhi will run highest electric buses in any city of the world after China
·         Tenders for electric buses to be released within a week

The Delhi cabinet in its meeting on  Saturday morning, chaired by the Chief Minister Shri Arvind Kejriwal approved the Department of Transport proposal for the phase –wise engagement of 1,000 (one thousand) AC low floor pure Electric Buses in Delhi under Gross Cost Model of contracting. This is the largest such commitment so far by any Indian city and for any city outside of China.

The Delhi government is committed to providing an efficient and environment friendly mode of public transport for the residents of Delhi. Creating sufficient capacity in public transport system is the only way to reduce air pollution in Delhi and bring down the number of vehicles on the roads of Delhi to reduce congestion.

The details of the decision are as follows :

a)     The cabinet also gave its approval to allow the Transport department to ask the prospective bidders to bring the buses with CCTV, Automatic Vehicle Tracking System (AVTS), Panic buttons and Panic alarms, as per the specification finalized by the Transport Department.  The cabinet also approved the proposal to authorize the Transport Minister for approval of all Request for Qualification and Proposals (RFQPs) under this project.
b)    1000 low floor electric buses will be parked and charged overnight at 6 depots called as Parent Depots. Providing the charging infrastructure up to the LT bus bar level in Parent Depots shall be the responsibility of the government. However, infrastructure for charging of electric buses within the depot and the housing of requisite numbers of charging units shall be the responsibility of the Concessionaire. The arrangements to provide power infrastructure at intermediate charging points along bus routes (called as host depots) will also be the responsibility of the Concessionaires.
c)     The project of engagement of 1,000 standard size (12m) low floor AC pure electric buses is under Gross cost contracting model. Decision on floating of individual RFQPs for each cluster shall be taken by the Transport Minister, depending upon the readiness of depots and the power infrastructure therein, as to which of the clusters are ready for tendering. The Minister has also been authorized to split and regroup the clusters depending on the readiness of depots.
d)      The bidders can choose between any of the operational models for running the buses i.e. overnight charging only at Parent depots (Option A) or overnight charging and opportunity charging during the day at Host depots (Option B)
e)      A subsidy of up to Rs 75 lakh per bus or 60% of cost of bus, whichever is lesser, shall be provided in three instalments and as per the modalities in FAME-I scheme along with the safeguards as prescribed by Delhi government
f)    The cabinet has decided that subsidy and power infrastructure up to Parent Depots, estimated to be Rs 800 crores, will be funded through the utilization of the ECC funds, presently a corpus of approximately Rs 1100 crore, subject to directions and/or orders of the Hon’ble Supreme Court on this issue.

The first set of tenders are expected to be released within a week and the first lot of electric buses are expected to hit the streets before the end of 2019.

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Maurya/