The Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) has scrapped its plan to purchase 800 buses that would run on petrol and diesel.
Instead, the transport utility — following a nudge from chief minister Devendra Fadnavis — will acquire 500 electric buses over the next six months.
The buses will be acquired under the gross capital cost (GCC) model, which greatly reduces the financial burden on PMPML, officials said.
Earlier this month, Fadnavis had told PMPML officials to introduce environment friendly buses, after which the transport body scrapped its initial plan to buy 800 buses running on fossil fuels.
“I met Fadnavis a fortnight ago, when he told us to concentrate on getting environment-friendly buses rather than petrol- and diesel-run buses,” PMPML director Siddharth Shirole told TOI. “In fact, he was completely against the idea of diesel-run buses. PMPML has been trying to include electric buses in its fleet and so we decided to acquire 500 buses,” he added.
“The buses should be up and running in Pune in six months,” Shirole said, adding that the first batch is expected sooner — by June or July.
Under the GCC model, PMPML will incur minimal cost. “We had considered buses running on compressed natural gas (CNG) too, but came to the conclusion that electric ones will be more cost-effective,” Shirole added.
“We are creating the infrastructure for them. Availability of space for parking of these as well as the existing buses remains a concern, but we should get additional land from PMC, PCMC and other bodies by the time the (electric) buses arrive,” he said.
Sanjay Shitole, secretary of the PMP Pravasi Manch, cautioned the transport body from making any mistakes. “The condition of the existing buses is a constant concern which the PMPML has yet to address. The electric buses should definitely be tried, but how effective they are purely depends on PMPML,” he said.
Source : TOI
