Bangalore Electric Buses To Grow In Number; 150 Charging Stations Coming Up In Karnataka

Bangalore's electric buses will grow in number by a good margin in the not-too-distant future. The government of Karnataka is planning to introduce close to 3000 electric buses in the state within the next three years, as part of the new 'e-vehicle promotion policy'.

Images used are for representational purposes only.

ET Auto shares that the Karnataka government is ready to provide special incentives and concession for those who wish to set up electric-vehicle manufacturing facilities in the state. This information was passed at a recent e-summit by the Minister of Large and Medium-Scale Industry, K J George.

The summit was attended by the main players of electric mobility in India including Mahindra Electric, Ather Energy, E Trio, Sun Mobility, E Trio and Ampere.

Bangalore Electric Buses

Calvin Yi, CEO of WEVIO and leader of a South Korean delegation, said that the company aims to set up a joint venture with various Indian groups. Meanwhile, C Shika, Managing Director of BESCOM (Bangalore Electric Supply Company) stated that the majority of charging stations in the city are privately-owned, but the government will still invest more in this regard.

"We have already set up four charging stations at Vidhana Soudha, Vikas Soudha, KRC and Bescom. We will expand this to 30. We are also working on getting an EV corridor set up along the Chennai-Bengaluru highway and Mysuru-Bengaluru highway," Shika said.

As per data, the state of Karnataka generates 27,000 megawatts of power. In this, 12,000MW is from renewable energy sources while solar power accounts for 4,000MW.

The state government also aims to convert/replace 50 per cent of vehicles commissioned/used by its officials to electric models. For this, the government will be working with private bus fleet operations by providing adequate incentives.

Darpan Jain, Commissioner for Industrial Development and Commerce told, "We are also talking to big building groups to allocate 10% of parking space for e-vehicles and for charging stations."

"It's often a chicken and egg story. Which comes first, the infrastructure or the vehicles? So to solve that we are focusing on setting up more charging stations across the city. Some of these could come up at petrol pumps," he further added.

Bangalore Electric Buses

Thoughts On Karnataka Government Promoting More Electric Buses

If we consider the most important city in Karnataka, Bangalore, BMTC buses play a prominent role in every-day traffic. In addition to the present traffic congestions due to metro constructions and related road diversions, the pollution caused by public transport is noticeably on the rise. With the introduction of cleaner electric buses, Bangalore's pollution levels can be kept in check to a certain extent.

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Read more on: #auto news
Article Published On: Thursday, January 31, 2019, 12:18 [IST]
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