Hyderabad: The new electric buses the first of its kind in the city in the New Year is going to launch from various parts of the city. This would be the first time that a passenger vehicle operating on electricity will be run in Hyderabad.
The buses will first operate from various parts of the city to the Shamshabad airport.The state government is planning to place the order for 20 electric buses and 10 to 20 e-cars under the FAME India scheme, which is intended to promote an environment-friendly road transport system in major cities across the country.
The senior officials of the TSRTC said that the Silicon rubber insulator manufacturer Goldstone Infratech company has come forward to give an electric bus costing Rs 2 crore to the TSRTC for a trial run.
The capacity of the charging station is one megawatt and each of the buses will run for 200 km. These buses run completely on battery with no fuel emission and reduced noise and air pollution. A lot of fuel would be saved.
The Central government is providing Rs 795 crore to promote electric vehicles in the cities during the first two fiscals from this year. These vehicles will also bring down the operational costs.
Transport department principal secretary Sunil Sharma said on Monday that.“The state government will send a detailed proposal to ply electric vehicles in a week’s time.”
The official said after seeing the success of electric buses in Bengaluru, the demand for such buses has gone up in other parts of the country. The Goldstone was negotiating with Chinese automobile companies to manufacture electric buses in the country to meet the growing demand.
The cost of each bus is Rs 2 crore, the cost would come down once the manufacturing of these buses begins in the country.RTC executive director M Ravinder said studies in states where such buses were in operation had shown that the operational cost of these buses was almost 50 per cent less than the diesel ones. While the operational cost of diesel bus was Rs 18 per km, the electric bus would cost Rs 9 only.