State to buy 2,600 buses with German aid

As part of rolling out the scheme under the first phase, a project agreement was signed between the Transport Department and KfW in the presence of Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami at the Secretariat on Thursday to procure 2,213 new buses under BSVI norms and 500 electric buses worth Rs 1,580 crore (203 million Euro), a press release said.

According to the State government, under the project agreement, setting up of charging stations for electric vehicles, acquisition of software and hardware for the upgradation of Transport Department, setting up of passenger information systems, cashless ticketing and others would be implemented. Transport Minister MR Vijayabhaskar, Chief Secretary K Shanmugam and KfW Development Bank Deputy Director Christiane Schmidt were among those who were present on the occasion, it added. The Metropolitan Transport Corporation has been operating an electric bus provided by Ashok Leyland in the city between Tiruvanmaiyur and Central station on trial basis. The vehicle was flagged off by the Chief Minister on August 26. Under the FAME II scheme sponsored by the Centre, 525 electric buses have been approved for various cities in the State – except for Chennai which is expected to get approval in the next round. Earlier, the State government had announced in the budget that it would acquire 12,000 new buses and 2,000 electric buses with KfW’s debt assistance of Rs 5,890 crore. The release added that ‘Clean Bus Declaration’ has already been signed between C-40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and Transport Department on March 28 last year in order to protect the environment, reduce the air pollution and encourage the operation of the electric buses.