The Haryana government on Monday approved the tender for procurement of 200 electric buses for Gurugram and Faridabad during a meeting of the high-level procurement committee chaired by chief minister Nayab Singh Saini in Chandigarh, officials said.
A senior Gurugram Metropolitan City Bus Limited (GMBCL) official confirmed the approval, saying the tender was discussed in detail before being cleared. The electric buses are expected to join the city bus fleet by April. As per details shared by GMBCL, one of the bidders quoted ₹55.47 per kilometre for providing 9-metre buses under the PM E-Sewa project.
According to tender documents, the agreement for operating the buses will be for 12 years, and each bus will run 5,400 km per month. “The proposal for acquiring the e-buses has been approved by the Haryana government, and we expect these to reach the city by the end of March. The infrastructure for operating these buses is ready, and an e-bus depot has been completed in Sector 10 for e-bus operations. Another e-bus depot is currently under construction in Sector 48 at a cost of ₹16 crore. We will be able to serve the city in a better way once these 200 buses are added to the fleet,” said a senior GMBCL official.
GMBCL officials said the company that won the bid will provide drivers for the e-buses, while conductors will be arranged by the bus corporation. “The bus corporation will hire additional conductors for the new buses, and we have asked the government agency to provide the manpower. In case these are not available, we will make additional arrangements,” the official said.
Vishwajit Choudhary, CEO, GMBCL, said 200 additional buses for Gurugram have been approved and 32 routes have already been identified. “We are ready to operate these additional buses for the city residents. Infrastructure for the electric bus depot is ready in Sector 10, while the parking lot is ready in Sector 48. A substation has been approved for the Sector 48 depot,” he said.