Government sets target of rolling out 1,000 e-buses next year

New Delhi: Not deterred by the by the Supreme Court-appointed EPCA’s objection to procurement of e-buses using green fund, the Delhi government has set a target of rolling out 1,000 e-buses next year.

According to the Delhi government’s “outcome budget” under which different departments set target for executing their schemes and projects, supply of e-buses by the manufacturers to concessionaire will begin from March 31, 2019, onwards.

The timeline for the project stipulates appointment of a consultant by June 1.

Earlier this month, the SC had directed the En-vironment Pollution Co-ntrol Authority (EPCA) to examine the Delhi government’s proposal to procure the e-buses by using a part of '999.25 crore environment compensation charge fund.

The EPCA had expressed reservation over it citing “lack of detailing” as well as the government’s past “track record” of bus procurement.

In March this year, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia had listed achievements of different departments while tabling their outcome budgets that also highlighted execution of projects and schemes to be carried out in current financial year. However, the timelines that were not mentioned in the outcome budget have been announced now.

The timelines for procurement of 1,000 new standard-size buses for Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and cluster scheme each have also been given in accordance with the outcome budget. As per the timeline for the scheme, the first batch of 40 buses should arrive on November 20 this year. Batches of 120 buses each per month are scheduled to arrive between December 20, 2018 to July 20, 2019.

In case of cluster scheme, a fleet of 251 buses are to be procured between September and November 2018. The remaining 749 buses are to be inducted between December 2018 to February 2019.