Delhi’s Vasant Vihar to get e-bus depot by 2026

The project will be completed in two years at a cost of ₹409.94 crore; it will be the largest such depot in the country, officials said.

More than four years after it was first announced, transport minister Kailash Gahlot and lieutenant governor (LG) VK Saxena on Tuesday laid the foundation stone of the city’s first multilevel electric bus depot in Vasant Vihar. It will be completed in two years at a cost of ₹409.94 crore, and will be the largest such depot in the country, officials said.

A view of the proposed multilevel bus depot at Vasant Vihar in New Delhi. (Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

The depot, which will come in place of the existing structure, will be built on a five-acre area having seven levels — a basement, five floors, a terrace — all of which will be used to park buses and private vehicles, according to the officials.

At any given time, as many as 434 buses would be parked at the new depot — 3.5 times the current capacity of 125 buses. It will also have a parking space for 230 cars and 200 two-wheelers in the basement.

Solar panels will also be installed on the terrace to cater to the electricity needs of the centre, officials said, adding that multiple charging points will be put on all floors.

“The Vasant Vihar Multilevel electric bus depot is not just a transportation hub, it is a symbol of Delhi’s future-oriented vision for urban mobility. It is also planned with advanced green technologies, energy-efficient systems and solar panels providing shading and renewable energy,” said Gahlot.

The depot is expected to be ready by August 2026. It will be constructed by NBCC (India) Limited under a Public-Private Partnership mode. The plan to build it was announced in March 2020.

“This is another significant step towards a greener and more sustainable transportation system for Delhi that will also help mitigate parking woes,” LG Saxena said in a post on X.

The transport minister said that the depot has been designed keeping in mind the specifications required for parking of buses, such as a six-metre ramp and a slope that will allow heavy vehicles to pass smoothly. “A bus weighs approximately 16 tonnes, and over 400 such buses will be parked here. Surveys have been done to ensure a building stretch that will support such weight, and the ramps have also been designed with specific gradient,” he said.

He added that solar panels of 122 kilowatt (KW) capacity to be installed on the roof will generate nearly 600 units of solar energy and will supply electricity to the depot’s common areas. Additionally, the facility will have 85 charging points for both buses and public vehicles on all floors.

The height of the depot will be 35 metres with a total built-up area of 7.6 lakh square feet and ground coverage of 1.27 lakh square feet. As per the plan, the ground floor will have 16 maintenance pits, and buses will be parked at a 45-degree angle, as per the analysis done to check optimal use, the transport minister said.

“We did extensive surveys and realised that this is the best angle to ensure optimal use and that reversing is easy for buses. Two six-metre-wide ramps will be installed on every floor with a gentle 1:20 slope that will ensure that two buses can pass through it at the same time. A bus is around three metres wide,” said Gahlot.

He also said that the depot will be a zero-waste discharge depot with its own Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) and green air-purifying plants at all levels.

Additionally, Gahlot said, the construction work will be done while ensuring no disturbance to the metro tunnel underneath it.

“There is a metro line that passes from underneath this depot and this will make the construction process challenging. Instead of the usual raft structures, pile structures will have to be made. We have already discussed our plan with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation on the same,” said Gahlot.

Experts, however, say that authorities will need to keep traffic arrangements in mind while allowing a commercial development in an area that already has high on-street parking and congestion issues.

Buses usually stop outside the depot on the main Outer Ring Road stretch under the IIT flyover to pick and drop passengers. This leaves just one lane for other vehicles that causes congestion. On the internal Vasant Vihar Road, one lane is permanently occupied by parked vehicles while leaving just two lanes for vehicular movement.

“This is an already congested area that needs police enforcement to control on-street parking. At such locations, the authorities should try to develop the entry point in a way that the bus traffic is distributed. So, the access should be designed in a way that the buses come out of the depot and stop at two or more places on the Mahipalpur Road and Outer Ring Road. The movement and schedule of buses should also be streamlined so that there is no unnecessary clogging of the roads,” said S Velmurugan, chief scientist and head, Traffic Engineering and Safety Division, Central Road Research Institute (CRRI).