150 New Electric Buses On Delhi’s Road
Opportunity India Desk
May 25, 2022 -
4 min read
Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of National Capital Territory of Delhi in the presence of Kailash Gahlot, Transport Minister flagged 150 electric buses on 24 May 2022 at 12 noon at Delhi Transport Corporation Indraprashtha Depot - IP Estate, New Delhi and announced that the national capital will boast of 2,000 more such buses by next year. The chief minister said, “Delhi government is planning to spend INR 1,862 Crores on procuring electric buses over the next 10 years.”
Kailash Gahlot, Transport Minister, NCT Delhi said, “Delhi government has always been pushing its people to shift to greener modes of transport and make the switch to EVs. Shifting to public transport, especially sustainable modes of public transport is a lifestyle change that we wish to see in Delhiites.”
Features Of Delhi Electric Vehicle Buses
The Electric Vehicle (EV) buses claim to be zero smoke and zero-emission, have CCTV cameras, GPS, 10 panic buttons, ramps for the differently-abled, etc. It has live video streaming in case of an emergency and a fire detection and suppression system.
These buses will be directly monitored by the Central Command Control room. The Delhi government currently operates 3,670 buses under the DTC and 3,033 buses under the cluster bus service. The government further targets to add 5,000 more buses to the city’s fleet.
Highlights Of Delhi Electric Buses
Routes Of Delhi Electric Vehicles Buses
Three depots at Mundela Kalan, Rajghat, and Rohini Sector-37 have been completely electrified and ready to house these 150 new buses, said the statement.
The electric buses will run on major routes of Delhi - Teevra Mudrika on Ring Road, Route No 502 between Mori Gate and Mehrauli Terminal, Route No E-44 on IP Depot, as well on the Connaught Place, Safdarjung, South Extension, Ashram, Jangpura and India Gate routes.
The Delhi government had an initial target of EV registration of 25 per cent of the total vehicle registration by 2024. About a couple of years back, the registration rate for EVs was 1-2 per cent, which has now become 12.6 per cent as recorded in the month of March, the Union Territory of Delhi has seen a massive increase.
Delhi Electric Vehicle (EV) Policy
Termed as one of the most progressive EV policies, the Delhi EV Policy could turn out to be the most progressive one in India and among the best globally. It was well-received because it sets an ambitious vision for Delhi to drastically reduce vehicular air to become one of the world’s top cities in terms of EV adoption. This ambitious government aims to have 1 out of every 4 vehicles sold in Delhi by 2024, to be an EV.
Delhi EV Policy aims to achieve the overarching objective to improve Delhi’s air quality and create an entire supply-chain ecosystem for this new segment of vehicles. In order to significantly benefit Delhi’s air quality, the policy intends to deploy 25 percent of all new vehicles to be battery-operated vehicles by 2024.
The policy aims to ensure demand generation as a means to ensure mass adoption and quick proliferation. In order to ensure demand generation, it adopted a method of a combination of fiscal and non-fiscal incentives. While the fiscal incentive structure comprises purchase incentive, scrapping incentive on de-registration of old vehicles and interest waivers, the non-fiscal incentives will address issues such as road-tax waivers, green-registration plates for EVs, license-fee waivers and single-window clearances.
The demand incentive available on various segments is expected to have a positive impact on the overall return of investment of the vehicle.
The policy has the provision to support operations from a battery-swapping operator. While a number of theoretical and operational challenges exist around battery swapping systems, the policy may be a step in the direction of ensuring practical and commercial use of battery swapping technologies.
The funding angle to the Delhi EV Policy is also a rare one. It has adopted the concept of “feebate” that means adopting measures by which inefficient or polluting vehicles incur a surcharge to fund a high proportion of the demand incentives. The policy directs funding through sources like pollution cess, road tax, congestion tax, and other sources such as the environment compensation charge (ECC).
