Andhra Pradesh to procure 1,000 e-buses from centre

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh government has sent a proposal to the centre for procuring 1,000 new electric buses to operate them on several routes in the state.

The proposal has been sent to Convergence Energy Services Limited, which is a subsidiary of state-owned Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) of the union ministry of power.

The APSRTC authorities propose to operate the new e-buses on 11 routes covering several parts in the state. 250 are to be operated between Tirupati and Tirumala, 400 to 500 between Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam, while the remaining will be operated on other specified routes over short journeys.

A senior RTC official said, “We will operate the buses under the gross cost contract model.” In other words, the operator who procures the e-bus will bear its cost of procurement. The bus will be contracted to APSRTC, which will provide space for parking and maintaining the bus. An APSRTC conductor will be posted on the e-bus, who will sell tickets. The daily collection will be remitted to APSRTC which, in turn, will pay the operator at regular intervals.

Already, 100 e-buses are being operated on several routes like Tirupati-Tirumala, Renigunta Airport-Tirupati, Tirupati-Madanapalle, Tirupati-Kadapa and Tirupati-Nellore.

The operator will be paid ₹53 per km for operation of e-buses between Tirupati and Tirumala. It will be nearly ₹46 on other routes.