By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, August 8, 2019: The Union government Thursday sanctioned a fleet of 50 electric buses for Smart City Bhubaneswar for intracity and intercity operation under the ‘Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India’ (FAME) scheme Phase II in order to give a push to clean mobility in public transportation.

A total of 5595 electric buses has been approved for 64 cities under the second phase. These buses will run around 4 billion kilometers during their contract period and are expected to save cumulatively about 1.2 billion liters of fuel, which will result in avoidance of 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 emission.

Odisha Minister of State for Science and Technology, Ashok Chandra Panda had recently informed in the Assembly that the state government is planning to introduce electric buses in phases in a bid to curb air pollution in urban areas.

He had said that electric buses will ply in Puri, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack in the first phase.

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

The Centre has approved the sanction of 5,095 electric buses (e-buses) for 64 cities across the country, 400 e-buses for intercity operation and 100 e-buses for last mile connectivity to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

In fact, the union ministry has been flooded with proposals from the states and union territories for the deployment of 14,988 e-buses. These buses will run about 4 billion km during their contract period and are expected to save cumulatively about 1.2 billion litres of fuel over the contract period, which will result in avoidance of 2.6 million tonnes of CO2emission.