City gets Ist electric bus

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 10

In a major environment-friendly initiative, the Delhi Government today launched the country's first-ever pollution-free electric bus to be run on a pilot basis for six months. 

“It is the first such bus in India which is 100 percent pollution free and operates completely on electricity. It is a pilot project. The bus will run on trial basis for six months in Delhi,” said Transport Minister Gopal Rai.

On the initiative of the Transport Department and the Delhi Dialogue Commission (DDC), this bus will make 10 round trips connecting Delhi Secretariat to Central Secretariat every day and based on the field results and the feedback, the government will take the future steps. The bus will be run and managed by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC).

Last year DDC vice chairperson Ashish Khetan visited China after which the AAP government decided to run 100 electric bus, developed by a China-based automobile firm. 

“The government has not paid a single penny for the bus. The bus takes four hours to charge completely and runs 280 km in one full charge,” Khetan said.

“If we get positive results after six month, we will like to add more such buses in our fleet. The Delhi government has provided basic facilities like parking space and charging point at the Millennium Depot. We have also provided a driver and a conductor of DTC,” the minister said at Delhi Secretariat. 

The move assumes significance as an eight-year joint study, between 2008-2015, conducted by IIT-Roorkee, University of Minnesota, US and University of Surrey, UK had shown that emissions from vehicles have increased up to three times between 1991 and 2011 and could rise by up to 19 times by 2020.

This electric bus is being introduced in India by the Smart Group, under their E-Vehicle manufacturing project - Smart Dreams. Smart Group has associated with Build Your Dreams (BYD), China as their technology partner for the project. 

The study projected greater pollution from buses. Taxis and Cars (30-34 per cent) were found to be producing the highest CO2 emissions during 2011 to 2015; there is likelihood that buses could dominate in the years after 2015.

This electric bus is air-conditioned, has CCTVs and Public address system for women safety, besides other major emergency arrangements. It has a battery life of more than 4,000 recharging cycles, which is fire-proof.

Such buses are said to be already running successfully in Los Angeles (USA) and Shenzhen (China) with trials going on in cities like London and Jakarta.