Govt sanctions over 5,500 electric buses under FAME Phase II

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The Department of Heavy Industry has approved the sanction of 5,595 electric buses to 64 cities, state government entities, and state transport undertakings for intra-city and inter-city operation under FAME India scheme Phase II to push for clean mobility in public transportation.

The FAME scheme aims at encouraging faster adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles. In February 2019, the government had approved Rs. 10,000 crores for FAME Phase II to support a million electric two-wheelers, half a million three-wheelers, 55,000 four-wheelers and 7,000 buses.

Proposals from 26 States/UTs were received for the deployment of 14,988 e-buses. After evaluation of proposals, Centre sanctioned 5,095 electric buses to 64 cities / State Transport Corporations for intra-city operation, 400 electric buses for inter-city operation and 100 electric buses for last-mile connectivity to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

Delhi, Mumbai., Bangalore and Hyderabad have each been allotted 300 e-buses. Several Tier 2 cities such as Ahmedabad, Pune, Coimbatore are also on the list with 100-150 buses each.

The selected cities will now initiate the procurement process in a time-bound manner for the deployment of sanctioned electric buses on an operational cost basis. Buses which satisfy required localization level and technical eligibility notified under FAME India scheme phase II will be eligible for funding under FAME India scheme phase II.

These buses will run about four billion kilometres during their contract period and are expected to save cumulatively about 1.2 billion litres of fuel over the contract period, which will result into avoidance of 2.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission.