Haryana Speaker flags off e-bus service in Panchkula city

Ravneet Singh

Panchkula, March 8

The state government has started an electric bus service in Panchkula. Earlier, electric buses were plying on the roads of Panipat and Yamunanagar districts, and the environment-friendly mode of transport has been introduced in the city, too.

Haryana Assembly Speaker Gian Chand Gupta flagged off five electric buses at the Sector 5 bus stand here today.

The project was held parallel to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s launch of the services in Panchkula and Karnal through video-conferencing from Chandigarh.

Gupta, who was supposed to flag off the buses at 10.15 am, was an hour late. Addressing the gathering, he said the new service would make commuting in the city convenient. He said, “These buses are air-conditioned and have 45 seats, along with space for 18 commuters to stand. The buses have the capacity to run up to 70,000 km in an estimated 12 years, and all the buses would have a panic button and an in-built tracking system, among other modern features.”

The Haryana Roadways had established a new depot for these buses with proper charging stations, transformers and other equipment to charge the new vehicles. In the initial phase of the programme, five buses would be run on a single route, but the total number of buses is set to go up to 50 soon.

The Speaker was joined by Mayor Kulbhushan Goyal and the General Manager of Haryana Roadways, Panchkula, Ashok Kaushik, among other officials.

The electric bus service is the third public transport service in the city. Earlier, a bus depot was established, where 150 short-route and long-route buses were launched. In 2020, the government launched 40 mini-buses to ferry people on local routes.

Route plan

Sharing the route plan for the buses, officials of the Transport Department said the buses would start from Sector 5 and move through Sectors 4, 11, 10, 14-15 and 12A to reach Singhpura via Patiala Chowk, Zirakpur. The buses would return on the route and reach Sector 5, from where they would reach Housing Board Chowk after covering Sectors 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 17 and 18. The first bus will start from Sector 5 bus stand at 6.30 am and the last bus would start from Singhpura at 8.45 pm.

CM’s address

Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar joined the event through video-conferencing and said the state would run the electric buses free for seven days, adding that Haryana Roadways would collect the responses of commuters to zero in on the appropriate routes for these buses.

The CM said the government would launch similar services in Rohtak, Hisar, Ambala, Sonepat and Riwari. He said the new buses would be free in the two cities for the first seven days, adding that later the commuters would be charged Rs 10 for the first 5 kilometres, beydong which charges would increase every 3 kilometres. The CM said the buses would have 45 seats along with USB sockets and an emergency button, among other features, adding that the buses would be able to run for 200 km on a single charge.

He said the state’s total fleet of buses has increased from 3,083 to 4,651, adding that the state’s e-ticketing project, which would be used in electric buses, is the first such initiative in the country.