B Anbuselvan By Express News Service CHENNAI: For the first time in Chennai, electric buses are likely to be operated for public transport, from Wednesday. According to official sources, two buses will be operated and the routes selected for the trial run are: Chennai Central - Thiruvanmiyur and CMBT, Koyambedu - Broadway. One bus will ply in each of these two routes and commercial vehicle manufacturer Ashok Leyland will operate the buses on behalf of the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC). These two buses will be part of the 501 buses that Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami will flag off on Wednesday, for various public transport corporations. The State government in recent years, took a policy decision to encourage electric buses in public transport to reduce pollution. Last month, the government gave permission to MTC to accept Ashok Leyland’s proposal to ply the electric buses in Chennai. “As per the agreement, the private company will have to bear the expenses of maintenance. One bus will have battery swap technology and the other, fast-charging technology. The company will set up the facilities for recharging the buses,” said a transport department official. However, the MTC will bear the electricity bill for recharging the buses and in turn, the Corporation will get the ticket collection. “While the drivers will be designated by the company, the MTC will deploy conductors for the buses,” said the official. The electric buses that will start plying on Chennai roads from Wednesday, is an outcome of the various efforts by the government in the last two years. In July 2017, a trial test for an electric bus was conducted in Chennai. Followed by this, in June 2018, the State government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with England-based C-40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, to manufacture electric buses. Its proposal was to introduce 200 buses in Tamil Nadu. But even a year later, this initiative did not move forward. It is learnt that the Tamil Nadu government had requested the Central government to negotiate the procurement cost of a bus from Rs 2 crore to Rs 1.5 crore. The decision is still pending in this matter.A week ago, the Union government-sanctioned 525 electric buses for Tamil Nadu under Phase-II of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India Scheme (FAME India Scheme). Besides the two electric buses, Chief Minister Palaniswami will, on Wednesday, also flag off low-cost AC buses for Villupuram division of TNSTC and small buses for Salem division. The number of new buses allocated to various public transport corporations and divisions are: State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) - 118; MTC- 235; Villupuram (TNSTC) - 19; Salem (TNSTC) - 60; Coimbatore (TNSTC) - 16; Kumbakonam (TNSTC) - 25 ; Madurai (TNSTC) - 14 and Tirunelveli (TNSTC) - 14.According to official records, about 3,881 new buses have been added into the fleet of eight transport corporations in the last two years.

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