Uttar Pradesh Plans to Run e-buses under PM e-bus Sewa Scheme

Uttar Pradesh is targeting 1,850 e-Buses out of 10,000 under the PM e-Bus Scheme to run in the 19 urban centers in the state. 

These cities include Lucknow, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Firozabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Ghaziabad, Agra, Jhansi, Varanasi, Meerut, Prayagraj, Bareilly, Aligarh, Moradabad, Ayodhya, Shahjahanpur, Mathura, Rampur, and Saharanpur.

The UP government has formed a team of officers 

The UP Urban Development Ministry is preparing a proposal in this regard. The initiative will be aimed at promoting clean and sustainable public transportation through a PPP model in urban centres across India. 

• This was also discussed in the Indo-US bilateral talks recently at the G20 sidelines that reiterated the need for decarbonizing the transport sector.
• The UP government has formed a team of officers from four departments to make a feasibility survey in the 19 cities for timely operations of the buses. 
• A survey team has also been constituted with officers from the urban local body, UPPCL (discom), Lucknow City Transport Service Ltd and CESL, for every city.

What is PM-eBus Sewa?

The Cabinet in the last month approved a bus scheme called “PM-e-Bus-Sewa” under which 10,000 e-buses will be rolled out on a public-private partnership model.

• This scheme was announced by the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, in her 2021-22 budget speech, on February 1, 2021.
• The Scheme will support bus operations for 10 years.
• Scheme will cover those cities with 3 lakh plus population.

Objectives of the scheme

Reaching the Unreached: The scheme will cover cities of Three lakh and above population as per census 2011 including all the Capital cities of Union Territories, North Eastern Region and Hill States. Under this scheme priority will be given to cities having no organized bus service.

Direct Employment Generation: The scheme will generate 45,000 to 55,000 direct jobs through deployment of around 10,000 buses in city bus operation. 

Boost to E-Mobility: The scheme will promote e-mobility and provide full support for behind-the-meter power infrastructure.

• Cities will also be supported for development of charging infrastructure under Green Urban Mobility Initiatives.The support to bus priority infrastructure shall not only accelerate the proliferation of state-of-the-art, energy efficient electric buses but also foster the innovation in the e-mobility sector as well as development of a resilient supply chain for electric vehicles.
• This scheme shall also bring in economies of scale for procurement of electric buses through aggregation for e-buses.
• Adoption to Electric mobility will reduce noise and air pollution and curb carbon emission.
• Modal shift due to increased share of bus-based public transportation will lead to GHG reduction.

The Scheme has two segments:

Segment A – Augmenting the City bus services:(169 cities)

• The approved bus scheme will augment city bus operations with 10,000 e-buses on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.
• Associated Infrastructure will provide support for Development/ up-gradation of depot infrastructure; and Creation of behind-the-meter power infrastructure (substation, etc.) for e-buses.

Segment B– Green Urban Mobility Initiatives (GUMI): (181 cities)

• The scheme envisages green initiatives like bus priority, infrastructure, multimodal interchange facilities, NCMC-based Automated Fare Collection Systems, Charging infrastructure, etc.

Support for Operation: 

Under the scheme, States/Cities shall be responsible for running the bus services and making payments to the bus operators.  The Central Government will support these bus operations by providing subsidies to the extent specified in the proposed scheme.