Thane Municipal Corporation's (TMC) four-year wait for electric buses under the 'Fame India' scheme is now over. The corporation will now receive 32 E-buses from the Clean Air Action Plan subsidy by the end of January 2023, TMC Commissioner Abhijit Bangar said on Tuesday during a meeting with civic body officials.
"The TMC will receive 123 E-buses under the Clean Air Action Plan, which will be procured from the grant received in the three years 2020–21, 2021–22, and 2022–23," Mr Bangar said.
“32 of them will enter Thane Municipal Transport's (TMT) fleet by January. The remaining 91 will be functional by June 2023. The eco-friendly buses, with their ‘breathe easy, zero-emission, no noise’ properties, will give a new identity to Thane city. In the background of global climate change, environmentally friendly schemes are being implemented through the civic body," he added.
If there is a delay in inducting the buses into the TMT fleet, the contractor will be fined as per the terms of the contract, the civic chief said.
The TMC commissioner has issued that the new buses be run on diesel bus routes with the lowest income. He believed that if citizens used public transportation, income per kilometre would increase. He directed that subsidies be used to purchase as many E-buses and other environmentally friendly projects as possible.
During the meeting, the TMC chief also said that the civic body intends to use automated mechanical dust-cleaning devices to clean the city's large concrete roads. The commissioner ordered officials to include the device, which is widely used in modern cities around the world, in their scheme.