Indian Government to subsidise 5595 electric buses under the FAME II scheme

Indian Government’s Department of Heavy Industry has approved the sanction of 5595 electric buses to 64 Cities/State Government Entities/STUs for intra-city and intercity operation under FAME India scheme phase II to give a further push to clean mobility in public transportation.

The Department of Heavy Industry had invited the Expression of Interest (EoI) from million- plus cities, smart cities, State/Union Territory (UT) capitals and cities from special category states for submission of proposal for deployment of Electric Buses on operational cost basis.

In response thereof, 86 proposals from 26 States/UTs for the deployment of 14988 e-Buses were received. After evaluation of these proposals as per EoI, on the advice of Project Implementation and Sanctioning Committee (PISC) the Government sanctioned 5095 electric buses to 64 Cities/State Transport Corporations for intra-city operation; 400 electric buses for intercity operation and 100 electric buses for last mile connectivity to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

As per the department's EoI, buses which satisfy required localisation level and technical eligibility notified under FAME India Scheme Phase II will only be eligible for funding under FAME India scheme Phase II.

These buses will run about 4 billion kilometres 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 CO2 emission.

The state of Maharashtra in western India will receive subsidy for 725 buses, the maximum number for any Indian state. Mumbai, which is the capital city of Maharashtra, alone has been sanctioned to acquire 300 buses. The Tier 1 cities like Bengaluru, Delhi, and Ahmedabad will receive funding for 300 buses each. The 64 cities included in the proposal will receive grants on at least 25 buses each.

The department had earlier last month invited an EOI to install 1,000 charging stations, with each station supporting at least six charging points. These charging stations are required to support charging standards such as CCS, CHAdeMO, Type-2 AC or the local Bharat DC or Bharat AC standards. Each charging station should have at least one fast charger.