Delhi witnessed the launching of 50 new low-floor electric buses on Monday.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal flagged off the new low-floor electric buses from Rajghat DTC Depot, marking another milestone in Delhi's e-bus revolution aimed at significantly curbing pollution in the state.
"It is a matter of great happiness that 50 new electric buses are being inducted into Delhi's bus fleet today. With this, Delhi now boasts of 300 electric buses that have been procured within a very short span of time. I congratulate all the officers behind this mission and the people of Delhi upon getting such good facilities to commute.
"With the induction of 50 new electric buses today, Delhi now has 7,379 buses under its city bus transportation fleet. This includes 4,060 buses being operated under Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and 3,319 buses being operated under DIMTS (Delhi Integrated Multimodal Transit Systems). This is the highest ever number of buses in Delhi's fleet," he said.
Kejriwal said the Delhi government has recently started the process of taking over the operations of 100 Electric Feeder Buses of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and plan to operate a total of 480 feeder buses in the city in 2023.
"This means we already have 400 e-buses in Delhi, with 100 plying on metro feeder routes. Mumbai has 406 e-buses, the highest in the country. We have 6 buses behind them but we'll be far ahead of them very soon.
"Besides being equipped with CCTVs, Panic Buttons and all other modern tech, these buses are very eco-friendly. Pollution is amongst the biggest woes of Delhi and these buses are going to radically aid the cause of curbing pollution. Delhiites have been making succinct efforts against pollution and just this morning it was reported that 2022 was the least polluted year in the last 7 years," he added.
Meanwhile, Union Minister of Heavy Industries Mahendra Nath Pandey on Monday said that under the FAME II Scheme of the Ministry, cities/STUs/state governments placed supply orders for 3,538 electric buses, and out of these, a total of 1,716 have been deployed as on January 2. (SJ/IANS)
