Hyderabad: A battery-operated e-bus, which was imported from China by a company and handed over to the RTC for month-long test drives, is lying in the depot for 11 days as there is no provision for registering such a vehicle. The bus has completed trial runs at Ahmedabad and Chennai, where the governments had made created an ‘e-bus’ provision to provide temporary registration.
RTC executive director (Greater Hyderabad and Hyderabad zones) A. Purushotham Naik said that the corporation was requesting the transport department to issue a temporary registration to test-run the bus. Asked about the bus, joint transport commissioner J. Pandurang Naik said motor vehicle inspectors had checked out the vehicle and sent a report to the commissioner.
“Once the commissioner gives approvals, we can include the category in the list of registrations,” he said.
Vehicle experts saw problems in running the bus on the city’s roads. “The e-bus has low ground space and is suitable for the highways. Potholes and speed breakers on the city roads may lead to breakdowns,” one of the experts said. The e-bus has a ground clearance of 360 mm at the first step against 650 mm for city buses. “As per the company’s manual, the bus can run up to 250 km on a single charge. It takes three hours for a complete charge. The battery requires a 100 KVA power line for charging. In case of a breakdown on the road, there is no mechanism available to restore it easily,” an official said.
Mr Naik said that the RTC would run the bus from Secunderabad to Shamshabad Airport via LB Nagar. “As this is part of the inner ring road, we may not have any problem in running the e-bus on this route,” he said.
Rs 2.56 crore bus will likely be ‘rented’:
The e-bus that has been given to the RTC for a test drive costs '2.56 crore, there is a dilemma over either procuring it or hiring it from private firms. The bus has been acquired by a private tech infrastructure company, which expects to rent out the buses. The company has approached the Union minstry for renewable energy seeking subsidy to purchase more buses.
The ministry provides up to 70 per cent subsidy to purchase equipment related to renewable energy and vehicles. If the company succeeds in securing subsidy, it will need to pay only Rs 50 lakh per bus. An official from the RTC said it may not be able to pay that much, and could manufacture more CNG or diesel buses through its bus body unit instead of purchasing e-buses.
