The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking stands to benefit from the Budget’s intent to promote electric mobility in the country. The Centre plans to provide aid worth ₹10,000 crore in the next three years to individuals and public transport organisations buying electric vehicles.
A key measure to make the transport system go electric is the introduction of the second phase of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME II), which commenced on April 1.
BEST officials said by next week they will be sending an expression of interest to the Centre for buying 500 electric buses. BEST has already issued work orders for 80 electric, 40 regular and 40 air-conditioned buses. The first set of electric buses under FAME I is expected to be inducted into the fleet by the end of the month.
Slew of incentives
Under the second phase, the government intends to support 7,090 electric buses with an outlay of ₹3,545 crore. The Centre will provide an incentive of up to ₹50 lakh per bus, whose ex-showroom price does not exceed ₹2 crore. Electric buses are typically around three times as expensive as regular diesel or CNG buses. Under FAME II, the Centre will also provide assistance to set up charging stations. At present, BEST has only one charging point at Backbay depot, which services the six electric buses in its fleet. Senior BEST officials said they will be setting up charging stations at depots after finalising the routes for the electric buses.
The Finance Minister in the Budget speech said, “Only advanced battery and registered e-vehicles will be incentivised under the scheme with greater emphasis on providing affordable and environment-friendly public transportation options for the common man.”
Yuva Sena president Aaditya Thackeray tweeted, “Extremely crucial this was to push for electric vehicles in India. We started this little move in 2013, at the BMC by being the first city to have 6 buses in our BEST fleet from 2015. This year 80. Next phase 500 fully electric buses wld ply in Mumbai (sic).”
