New Delhi/UNI: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal along with Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena on Tuesday flagged off 400 new low-floor AC electric buses from IP State Depot, dedicating these buses to the people.
On the occasion, Kejriwal said that these buses are part of the subsidy scheme of 921 buses.
The Central government has provided a subsidy of Rs 417 crore for electric buses, while the Delhi government will spend Rs 3674 crores.
At present, there are 800 electric buses running in the national capital, which is the highest in the entire country, Office of the Chief Minister in a communique said.
Delhi aims to have 8,000 electric buses on the roads by the end of 2025. After this, there will be more than 10,000 buses in Delhi, out of which 80 per cent, or 8,280 buses will be electric, Kejriwal said.
Delhi will be known across the world for its adoption of electric buses, it said.
Kejriwal also reviewed the facilities for passengers available in e-buses. Now, these E-buses which are completely modern, and air-conditioned buses would run on Delhi roads.
With this, Delhi has become the city with the most number of Electric Buses on its streets, the communique added.
Kejriwal said, This is an extremely ambitious target, nothing short of a revolution. These buses dont cause pollution, on one single charge they run up to 225 kms. These Buses would have ramps for the differently abled individuals, and if needs be the entire bus kneels to get differently abled on board.
These are low-floor buses so they have stepless boarding which helps the passengers. Each bus has 3 CCTV cameras, and to ensure womens safety these buses have panic buttons. These buses provide two-way communication with the control room, and each bus has a GPS unit for its live tracking.
The buses are equipped with Disc brakes, fire detection and suppression systems. As of now, there are only 7135 buses on the streets of Delhi, of which 800 buses are Electric Buses and the rest 6335 buses are CNG buses.
Speaking on the need for the required infrastructure Kejriwal said, We need to have proper infrastructure because the Electric Buses will have different types of bus depots where they can be recharged. So far we have spent Rs 182 crores on the installation of 1500 depots for these Electric Buses.
These buses will run from Mayapuri, Nehru Place, Rohini-1, Rohini-2, and Banda Bahadur Marg depots. Besides this, the contract for 3980 buses with zero subsidy, has been awarded and they will start joining.
So, in Delhi, we are taking revolutionary steps of conversion of CNG Buses into Electric Buses. And within 2 years we would be on the global map, to have the most number of Electric Buses, the CM added.
