Context: Union Cabinet has approved scheme known as PM e-Bus Sewa Scheme for augmenting city bus operation by 10,000 e-buses on PPP model.
About PM e-Bus Sewa Scheme
Components of the scheme: The scheme has two broad components:
- Component I: Augmenting City bus services (169 cities): This component will augment city bus operations with 10,000 e-buses on PPP basis. Associated infrastructure will provide support for development/upgradation of depot infrastructure and creation of behind-the-meter power infrastructure (substation etc) for e-buses.
- Component II: Green Urban Mobility Initiatives (GUMI) (181 cities): Focuses on green initiatives like bus priority, infrastructure, multimodal interchange facilities, NCMC based Automated Fare Collection Systems, charging etc. Promote e-mobility and full support will be provided for behind-the-meter power infrastructure. Cities will be supported for development of charging infrastructure under Green Urban Mobility Initiatives.
Coverage: The scheme will cover cities with population of 3 lakhs and above as per census 2011 including all capital cities of UTs, North-Eastern & Hill States. Priority will be given to cities having no organised bus service.
Operation of e-buses: States/Cities shall be responsible for running the bus services and making payments to bus operators.
Timeline: Bus operation will be supported for a period of 10 years.
Financing of the scheme: The scheme would have an estimated cost of Rs 57613 crore. Of this Rs 20,000 crores will be provided by Central Government as subsidy to the State Governments.
Significance of the scheme
- Support to bus priority infrastructure will accelerate the proliferation of state of the art energy efficient electric buses
- Foster innovation in e-mobility sector
- Lead to development of resilient supply chains for electric vehicles.
- Bring economies of scale for procurement of electric buses through aggregation for e-buses.
- E-mobility will reduce noise and air pollution and curb carbon emissions.
- Modal shift due to increased share of bus-based public transportation will lead to GHG reduction.
- Buses lead to democratisation of roads as more people particularly from poorer sections of society use them more.
- Women are particularly more inclined to use buses and helps increase their employment opportunities.
- Buses are essential for last mile connectivity.