Rs 212 Cr Released Under FAME-II for Electric Buses: Javadekar

As of January 31, nearly Rs 212 crore has been released for the procurement of electric buses under the FAME II scheme, Prakash Javadekar informed the parliament.

As of January 31, 2021, nearly Rs 212.31 crore has been released for the procurement of electric buses under the second phase of the FAME-India (FAME II) scheme, Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Minister Prakash Javadekar informed the parliament. With an aim to promote eco-friendly vehicles, the government had launched the FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric) India scheme in 2015 and then launched the second phase of the scheme in April 2019.

The Minister said that the Department of Heavy Industry had invited the Expression of Interest (EoI) from million-plus cities, smart cities, state/UT capitals and cities from special category states for submission of proposal for deployment of electric buses on an operational cost basis. After that, 86 proposals from 26 states/UTs for the deployment of about 15,000 e-buses were received.

“About Rs 212.31 crore has been released for procurement of e-buses under Phase-II of FAME-India Scheme as on 31.01.2021,” Javadekar added.

He then added that the project implementation and the sanctioning committee had previously sanctioned the subsidies for procurement of 5,565 electric buses by 65 cities/ state transport corporations for intra-city operation; 600 electric buses for intercity operation and 100 electric buses for last-mile connectivity to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

The ministry believes that these buses will run about 4 billion kilometres during their contract period and are expected to save cumulatively about 1.2 billion litres of fuel over the contract period, which will result in the avoidance of 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 emission.

In September 2020, the minister had informed that the central government has so far (until September 10, 2020) supported over 27,000 electric vehicles (EVs) by way of demand incentive amounting to about Rs 95 crore under the FMAE-II scheme.

He had also informed that the DHI had also sanctioned 2,636 electric vehicles (EVs) charging stations amounting to Rs 500 crore in 62 cities across 24 states/ UTs under the FAME India scheme phase II.