Guwahati: The Assam State Transport Corporation (ASTC) will procure 100 new electric buses from Olectra Greentech Limited.
The ASTC has submitted a Letter of Award to Hyderabad-based electric bus manufacturing company Olectra Greentech Limited for 100 electric buses.
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As per reports, the company will deliver the buses over a period of 9 months and shall be responsible for the maintenance of these buses for a period of 5 years.
The value of these 100 buses supply would be approximately Rs 151 crore for Olectra.
Chairman and managing director of Olectra Greentech, K V Pradeep while expressing happiness over the order said, “We feel happy to get the first order from the North-eastern states and Assam. With this order, our buses are running all the corners in India. Ours clocked over 5 crore kilometres on Indian roads, and reduced carbon emissions significantly.”
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The ASTC has planned to replace its city buses in Guwahati with electric and compressed natural gas (CNG) in the next five years.
Earlier, Transport minister Parimal Suklabadiya had said the process to procure the electric and CNG buses has begun.
“The decision was made following drastic climate change due to high pollution levels. Vehicular pollution is one of the major concerns. It has posed a serious threat to public health as well as the environment,” he added.
There are about 700 privately-owned city buses, all of which run on diesel. Among them, 260 are under ASTC. The ASTC has 15 electric city buses in the city that are operating since 2019.
These were procured under the Faster Adoption and Manufacture of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME) India scheme.
The minister had said all the government vehicles in Assam will be converted to electric vehicles by 2030 in a bid to curb carbon emissions as per the Electric Vehicle Police of the state.