Centre to float tender for 3,500 electric buses in nine big cities.

The central government is planning to come up with an electric bus (e-bus) tender to procure around 3,500 new e-buses for nine cities with a population over 4 million each, Business Standard has learnt.

The move comes a month after the Ministry of Heavy Industries’ (MHI’s) decision to raise the funding support for e-buses to Rs. 4,307 crore, from the budgeted Rs. 3,545 crore. In May, the ministry slashed subsidies for three-wheelers, four-wheelers, and charging infrastructure as part of a major rejig of the ₹10,000-crore electric vehicle (EV) incentive scheme -- Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles (FAME-II).

“This month, we had two consultation rounds with state/city transport undertakings (STUs) and have asked them to submit details of their e-buses requirements,” said a top government official, adding, “the tender will come soon as we are expecting STUs to submit details from these cities within a month.”

The plan is to cover nine cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Surat, and Pune.

The new procurement will be done through the diverted funds, savings made on competitive bidding in earlier tenders, and the money that remained unused after the cancellation of orders by a few STUs. 

Apart from Rs. 762 crore diverted towards the e-buses category, Rs. 536 crore was saved by the government due to competitive bidding in the state-owned Convergence Energy Services’ (CESL’s) earlier tender. Moreover, orders for 348 buses were cancelled by STUs and that fund remains unused. 

BS