Nagpur Becomes First Indian City To Have An Electric Public Transport Network With 200 Vehicles

The Orange City has become India¡¯s first city to have electric mass mobility system. It will have a fleet of 200 electric vehicles including taxis, buses, e-rickshaw and autorickshaws, all of which will be fully owned by cab aggregator Ola.

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Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari, along with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, inaugurated India¡¯s first multi-modal electric vehicle project at the Nagpur Airport Complex on Friday.

¡°Electric mass mobility ecosystem in Nagpur will bring about a transformational change in automotive and transportation landscape in the country,¡± Gadkari said.

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The state government is providing various subsidies for the electric mobility scheme, he said. ¡°In support of this initiative, we have waived VAT, road tax and registration for all electric vehicles and we look forward to building Maharashtra as a model state for others to emulate in the future,¡± Fadnavis said.

The pilot project will commence with a 200-strong fleet, including 100 of Mahindra¡¯s new e2o Plus vehicles. The rest of the fleet will comprise vehicles sourced from other original equipment manufacturers such as Tata Motors, Kinetic, BYD and TVS.

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Ola has invested more than `50 crore in electric vehicles and charging infrastructure, starting with 50 plus charging points across four strategic locations in Nagpur.

¡°The government has been extremely supportive towards kick-starting this initiative and we look forward to working with them and the various industry partners in building the electric vehicle ecosystem from the ground up for India,¡± Ola CEO Bhavish Agarwal said.

¡°We believe that electric mobility in a multi-modal format will be key towards realising our mission of building mobility for a billion Indians,¡± he said.