Delhi to expand bus fleet with 2,080 electric vehicles, retire 1K old ones

The Delhi transport department is set to add 2,080 electric vehicles to its bus fleet over the year, an official said on Monday.

It currently operates around 7,000 buses in the city. But around 1,000 of those are set to get off road this year with some already being retired.

"We have signed a memorandum of understanding with five different concessioners to procure 1,040 buses. For the second set of 1,040 buses, we will sign agreements soon. Once they start rolling out, it would plug the gap created due to decommissioning of ageing buses," said a transport department official.

According to the plan, 1,040 buses will be added to the fleet in the first phase under the Centre's National Electric Bus Programme (NEBP). The scheme aims at introducing e-buses across the nation.

The second lot of 1,040 buses will be part of the PM Electric Drive Revolution in Innovative Vehicle Enhancement (PM E-DRIVE) scheme.

The scheme aims to incentivise over 14,000 e-buses across nine major cities with populations exceeding 4 million. The goal is to make e-buses a widely adopted mode of electric vehicle transportation.

"We are confident that enough buses will be included in our fleet by December," the official added.

Chief Minister Rekha Gupta had announced during her budget speech that urban transport projects will be implemented in Delhi with Central funding to bolster the city's public transport system.

"Around 5,500 buses will be maintained by the end of this year and 11,000 buses will be on the roads by 2026. Bus routes will also be reevaluated to address loopholes in the system," she had said in the budget.

Currently, Delhi has 2,152 electric buses. This includes 1,752 such buses under DTC and 400 under the DIMTS-Cluster scheme.