The Union Ministry of Heavy Industries has sanctioned as many as 50 electric buses for Bhubaneswar under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) India Phase-II scheme in a bid to promote clean and green public transport.
In each selected city, a State transport undertaking (STU) is required to initiate the procurement process in a time-bound manner for the deployment of sanctioned electric buses on an operational cost basis.
The Ministry had invited the Expression of Interest (EoI) from million-plus cities, smart cities, State and Union Territory capitals and cities from special category States for submission of proposal for deployment of electric buses on an operational cost basis.
These buses would run about 4 billion km 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 CO2emission.
Odisha Minister of State for Science and Technology Ashok Chandra Panda had recently informed the State Assembly that the State Government is planning to introduce electric buses in phases in a bid to curb air pollution in urban areas.
He had said that electric buses would ply in Puri, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack in the first phase.