India News | Maha Govt Joins TUMI E-bus Mission
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The Maharashtra government on Monday said it has joined the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI) E-Bus Mission for an e-bus fleet in the state, making the financial capital the first city in the country under the project.
Mumbai, Oct 4 (PTI) The Maharashtra government on Monday said it has joined the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI) E-Bus Mission for an e-bus fleet in the state, making the financial capital the first city in the country under the project.
The move comes amid the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government's increased push for e-mobility.
The mission aims to establish a broad coalition of public-and-private-sector organisations to achieve a transition to e-buses within 20 'deep dive cities' and to replicate this in a further 100 cities by the end of 2022, according to a statement.
By 2025, more than 1,00,000 electric buses in 500 cities are to be prepared for subsequent tenders and procurement.
Also Read | Bihar Shocker: Man Stabbed To Death Over Dispute Regarding Rs 8,000; Accused Arrested.
Mumbai's participation will see technical assistance that may include development of technical specifications for e-buses, protocols for performance assessment, planning the charging infrastructure, route operation and financial models and the development of public policies, the statement said.
The announcement to join the project, which will develop a tailored implementation work plan for deploying e-buses in Mumbai, comes close on the heels of state-owned Convergence Energy Services Ltd (CESL) announcing floating of a "grand challenge", a set of homogenised demand for e-buses aggregated across nine cities in the country.
The cities to be covered under the 'grand challenge' are Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Surat and Pune.
"A Letter of Intent (LoI) to join the TUMI E-Bus Mission was signed by BEST on Monday in the presence of Aaditya Thackeray, Minister for Environment, Tourism and Protocol, Government of Maharashtra," a release from the minister's office said.
The signing of the LoI signifies Mumbai reaffirmation of its resolution to work towards decarbonisation of public transport via electrification, it said, adding the TUMI e-bus mission will help the city define targets for e-bus deployment that will be monitored by an action plan.
"The transition to electric is necessary for all vehicle segments, big or small, in order to fast-track the achievement of climate and air quality goals. E-buses can play a significant role in this transition," Aaditya Thackeray was quoted as saying in the statement.
The project is part of the Action towards Climate-friendly Transport (ACT)-Initiative, which was launched at the UNSG Summit in September 2019.
BEST in Mumbai operates the largest electric bus fleet in India with 386 e-buses. By 2023, the transport undertaking plans to add 1,900 electric buses to its fleet and aims to convert 45 per cent of its current fleet to electric buses, as per the statement.
The German government's Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and World Resources Institute (lead and co-lead) together with the partners C40 Cities, The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and The International Association of Public Transport (UITP) are jointly implementing the TUMI E-Bus Mission until the end of 2022.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)