Delhi Now Has The Third Biggest Fleet Of E-Buses In The World
Taking a major step towards sustainable mobility, Delhi has added 350 more electric buses to its fleet. With this, the total number of electric buses plying on the roads of the national capital has gone up to 1650.
Delhi Lt Governor V K Saxena, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot flagged off the 350 electric buses on Wednesday.
Third biggest fleet of electric buses?
Minister Gahlot said that the national capital now has the 3rd largest such fleet in the world, only after Chinese cities and Santiago.
The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) had launched its first electric bus service in January 2022 between IP Depot and Pragati Maidan.
Since then DTC has added hundreds of electric buses to its fleet.?
Delhi to phase out CNG buses
In January 2023, the Delhi government had ordered 2,026 electric buses to be added to its fleet by December 2025.
The Delhi Government had also unveiled a plan to have the second largest fleet of electric buses in the world by the end of 2025.
According to the Delhi Government by 2025, over 10,000 buses will ply on Delhi's roads and 80 per cent of them will be electric-powered.
Why Delhi need more electric buses
By adding more electric buses and phasing out the CNG ones, the Delhi government is hoping to cut 4.67 lakh tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.
Vehicular emissions are one of the major components of air pollution in Delhi. Though CNG buses are not as polluting as diesel-powered ones, they still emit polluting gases such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides besides Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 and ultrafine particles.
A 2022 study by researchers at Kyushu University in Japan had said that if CNG buses are replaced with e-buses, around 74.67 percent of the total pollutant emissions from the existing bus fleet in Delhi could be reduced.
For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit?Indiatimes News.
