KSRTC goes green, steps on hump

Kochi: The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) on Monday marked a major shift to green fuels by deploying battery-powered air-conditioned buses in the 220-km Thiruvanantha-puram-Ernakulam section even as it appeared to have lost steam with respect to its initial initiative to run buses on compressed natural gas (CNG).

However, only eight out of the total 10 e-buses could be deployed on a day marked by utter confusion thanks to the poor planning by the corporation's technical wing in setting up battery charging points and ensuring supply of power by the KSEB.

Though five buses started journey from Thiruvananthapuram central bus station to Ernakulam, the battery chargers of one bus died down when it reached X-ray Junction (Cherthala) and another at Vytilla.

"Only one charging station at Haripad, besides that at headquarters and Aluva, was readied by the technical wing," sources said. In another lapse that made the situation grim, the power charge and transformer installation cost were not handed over to the KSEB, resulting in the latter not providing power at Harippad depot. Hence the buses could not recharge en-route."

The management had conducted talks with the KSEB over power drawing from transformers near bus depots at Haripad, Ernakulam, Kollam and Attingal. "They just have to ensure the power supply," they said.

The confusion forced authorities to hold back deployment of the remaining five buses, to be handed over to Ernakulam depot, till evening. Finally three buses headed to the commercial capital at 5 pm, 5.30 pm and 6 pm.

The technical wing realised its folly later and undertook remedial measures on a war-footing. By evening, temporary charging point was set up at Ernakulam depot and a major share of funds due to KSEB released, with the latter readying the charging points at Harippad and Ernakulam.

Earlier, the services using the 10 e-buses were conducted profitably in the Pamba-Nilackal service during the tenure of former Tomin J. Thachankary as managing director.

Though the experiment had initial hiccups, the commuters gave a thumps -up otherwise with the buses produce no noise and resulting in minimum environmental pollution during operation.

"The engine performance was normal as that of other buses. We felt no lag while negotiating slopes and curves as the buses reached destination in normal timing," said a driver of the e-bus.

With a single electric bus costing a whopping Rs 2 crore, the KSRTC had gone for wet-leasing of the buses. A contract was signed with the Mumbai-based  Mahavoyage LLP to operate the buses.

As per the contract, the e-buses, having a length of nine metres, will be operated by the contractor for which the corporation will pay Rs 43.20 per km. The fleet-owner will provide driver and also meet maintenance expense while the corporation needs to just provide electricity.

The buses have 34 seats and can run 280 kms in a single charging. It takes four hours for normal charging and one-and- half hours for fast charging. Though the top speed is 120 kmph, the same is restricted to 80 kmph.