PM-eBus Sewa Scheme tenders to be out next week
Under the PM-ebus Sewa, 10,000 e-buses will be deployed on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model in 169 cities alongside support for associated infrastructure, bus depots and behind-the-meter power infrastructure
The first set of tenders for 3,000 electric buses under the recently announced ‘PM-ebus Sewa Scheme’ will likely be floated next week, according to the Union housing and urban affairs ministry (MoHUA).
The scheme, cleared by the Union cabinet in August this year, aims to induct 10,000 electric buses in cities that lack organised public bus service.
Manoj Joshi, the secretary for the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs on Friday said the states have been given a month to send their proposals. “The states are working on it and the tender will be out by next week,” he told reporters at a press conference for the inauguration of 16th Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference cum Expo 2023 inaugurated by Union housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday.
Joshi said that a tender for another 2,000 buses will be floated for Uttar Pradesh alone with some modifications to this scheme. The details for the same are still being deliberated.
Under the PM-ebus Sewa, 10,000 e-buses will be deployed on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model in 169 cities alongside support for associated infrastructure, bus depots and behind-the-meter power infrastructure.
Besides, the Union government would help states set up bus priority infrastructure, multimodal interchange facilities, the national common mobility card-based automatic fare collection system and charging infrastructure under Green Urban Mobility Initiatives (GUMI).
The scheme is estimated to cost Rs.57,613 crore, out of which the Central government will provide support of Rs.20,000 crore. The Scheme will support bus operations for ten years.
Speaking at the event, Union minister Puri highlighted the progress in expanding the Metro lines across Indian cities, which is likely to become the second-largest network in the world in the coming three years.
“In 2014 (when the NDA [National Democratic Alliance] government came to power), only 248 km of Metro rail was operational in India. In nine years, 895 km of metro lines are operating in 20 cities today. At present, India’s metro network is the third largest in the world. In the next three years, our metro network will surpass the operational length of that in the United States and become the second-largest Metro network in the world.”
Puri said that the metro network has brought comfort, stability and security to the lives of our citizens. “I am happy to note that the metro network has a daily ridership of around one crore (10 million)”, he said.
The Union minister added that the financial viability of the metros across the country will improve drastically as and when the networks reach a critical density.
“The Metro ridership has to grow as the commuters see it as an efficient mode of transit. The Delhi-NCR has a coverage of 394 km, and this system has a ridership of about 70 lakh (seven million),” Puri said, adding that newer networks will need some adjusting period to see the ridership grow and ease of last connectivity will help further.
“In Bengaluru, the ridership is going up and there are very good reasons for it. As and when we add more lines, we will have a geometric progression in the numbers,” he said.
Academics and industry observers have repeatedly pointed out the wide viability gaps and differences in the projected and actual ridership of the metros in different Indian cities.
Ashish Verma, a professor at the transportation engineering research lab at the Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore, said the prime reason for overstating the ridership by consulting agencies is to make these projects look more viable on paper. “For most cities, the first and last-mile connectivity for the metros has come as an afterthought and is patchwork. This results from the lack of a more comprehensive and complex attitude required for the projects,” he said.
Ideally, the traffic demand patterns are to be studied for the city and then the alignment for the metro lines should be decided optimally, said Verma, adding “Typically, they would fix an alignment and then project ridership for the corridor. Hence you will not get the desired ridership, leading to questions regarding financial viability.”
Metros, being capital intensive, are primarily dependent on financing from multilateral agencies such as the World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Asian Development Bank And others. Experts have questioned how, in light of the low revenues, the state and union governments could manage to service the debts.
Focusing on the theme of “integrated and resilient urban transport”, the two-day mobility summit is being attended by senior officials, managing directors of Metro rail corporations, chief executives of transport undertakings, representatives of multilateral banks and international experts.