Lieutenant-Governor VK Saxena and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal during the event in New Delhi on Wednesday. Mukesh Aggarwal
New Delhi, February 14
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena and Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot flagged off 350 new electric buses (e-buses) at Sarai Kale Khan today.
Gahlot said the number of electric buses in Delhi had gone up to 1,650, making the state with the highest number of e-buses in the country and third globally.
Santiago, capital of Chile, is the second city globally with 2,000 e-buses.
These buses will operate on routes from Sukhdev Vihar, Rohini Sector-37 Depot-II and Burari Bus Depot-I. All these are low-floor e-buses equipped with the GPS, CCTV, panic buttons and other facilities for passenger safety.
Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot, addressing a press conference, said, “On January 17, 2022, the first electric bus was deployed on Delhi’s roads. However, the process of including these buses in Delhi’s bus fleet started on May 24, 2022.”
During that period, 150 electric buses were deployed. On August 24, 2022, 97 electric buses were included, on January 2, 2023, 50 buses were included, on May 1, 2023, 100 buses were included, on September 5, 2023, 400 buses were included and on December 14, 2023, 500 e-buses were included in the fleet.
“On Wednesday for the first time, 300 e-buses have been included in Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Ltd (DIMTS), while 50 buses have been included in the DTC. Earlier, all e-buses were included in the controlled depots of the DTC. Depots have been built in Rohini, Sector 37, and Burari to operate DIMTS buses, while DTC buses will be operated from Sukhdev Vihar,” he added.
The Transport Minister highlighted that from 2022 until now, 1,300 electric buses had been running on Delhi’s roads. These buses have covered a distance of 5.8 crore km so far, and the emission of 47,000 tons of carbon dioxide had been reduced in Delhi.
“Currently, there are 7,582 buses in Delhi’s bus fleet. Earlier, there were never so many buses in this fleet. This is a big deal in itself,” the minister said.
Gahlot said Route 502 is quite a popular route, which runs from the ISBT Kashmiri Gate to Mehrauli. Similarly, there is a high demand for buses on Route 419. This route goes from the ISBT Kashmiri Gate to Lado Sarai Firni Road.
In addition to this, Route 709 goes from Sultanpuri Terminal to IGI Airport Terminal 2, Route 946 from Q Block Mangolpuri Terminal to Anand Vihar ISBT, Route 962 from Kanjhawala Village to Central Terminal, Route 945A from Q Block Mangolpuri to Keshav Nagar Mukti Ashram, Route 433 from Badarpur Border to New Delhi Railway Station Gate Number-2, Route 511A from Badarpur Border to Dhaula Kuan, including other major routes.
He said, “In the future, we will continue to include more electric buses. Rohini Sector 37, Burari 1, and Sukhdev Vihar new depots have been inaugurated. We are electrifying all bus depots. So far, out of 60 bus depots in Delhi, the electrification of 16 has been completed. The electrification of the remaining depots is underway. Our goal is to bring 800 electric buses. In the coming time, Delhi’s bus fleet will consist of 10,480 buses, with 80% of these being electric buses. We aim to include 80% electric buses in the bus fleet, and currently 22% electric buses have been included in the fleet.”
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