BENGALURU: In spite of a National Green Tribunal (NGT) order, which makes it clear that the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) can only procure buses that run on clean energies like electricity or natural gas, the BMTC has decided to go forward with the purchase of diesel buses.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had halted BMTC’s plan to purchase 1,200 diesel buses and the corporation had decided to approach the Supreme Court against the stay. As the corporation wants to buy Bharat Stage IV diesel buses, it has gone ahead and called for tenders for the same.
BMTC managing director
N V Prasad said that the corporation will strengthen the legal team and prepare a strong case before approaching the apex court. “I fail to understand why the NGT is allowing private buses to run on diesel while restricting us from doing so. Either way we have called for tenders,” he said. Another official pointed out that the tenders were subject to the decision of the Supreme Court and this had been notified in the tender documents.
He also said the corporation currently had no plans of inducting buses which run on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) or electricity. In the past, there was some talk of leasing e-buses but according to BMTC, the costs involved were too high. For leasing these buses, the BMTC had offered to pay the manufacturer `60 per km on air-conditioned buses and `40 per km on non air-conditioned buses which also includes the cost of conductor and power charges.
The utility would have to run each bus for 200 km every day to break even, a sizeable difference from the current average distance travelled of 165 kilometers per bus on an average day. Prasad told CE that the initiative to bring in e-buses will only come in by April 2020 and the corporation is investing `80 crore into the project.
As of now, the corporation has 6,529 buses and is also in desperate need for more fleet strength. The BMTC has 3,067 BS-III and 3,423 BS-IV vehicles in their possession.