Two more cities in state — Ayodhya and Saharanpur — will soon get 25 electric buses each as mode of urban transport. With this, 16 cities in the state will have e-bus services.
Of the 300 electric buses that will be added to the fleet of 700 already operating in the state within the next three months, Lucknow will get 125, Prayagraj 100 and Gorakhpur 25.
The Union government has been promoting operation of electric buses through FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacture of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles) scheme. In August 2019, 640 electric buses were allocated to UP for operation in 11 cities, including Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Moradabad, Bareilly, Aligarh and Jhansi.
Later, the state government under the UP Electric Vehicle Manufacturing and Mobility Policy 2019 adopted three more cities under the scheme– Mathura-Vrindavan, Gorakhpur and Shahjahanpur.
The electric buses are being operated under the PPP (public private partnership) mode in which private firms operate buses for a 10-year period and directorate of urban transport hires buses under Gross Cost Contract (GCC) mode.
