To curb pollution: State mulls to launch trolley buses in city

KOLKATA: State Transport department is mulling to run Trolley buses in the city soon.

"We are trying to run e-buses in this city and CNG buses outside the city. But for various reasons, the supply of e-bus is less. So plans have been made to run trolley buses. The talks are at a preliminary stage," said state Transport minister Firhad Hakim, who had earlier

conducted a meeting on developing infrastructure for battery charging stations in Kolkata and Howrah to encourage the use of electric vehicles in the city. It is learnt that Commissioner of Kolkata Municipal Corporation Binod Kumar and Commissioner of Howrah Municipal Corporation Dhaval Jain were asked to conduct a survey to earmark places where such charging stations can be set up.

Hakim reiterated that trolley buses will run on the designated tram routes and will have tyres instead of iron wheels like trams. The electricity will be provided to the trolley buses through the overhead tram wire.

The initiative comes to cope with the spiralling sky rocketing diesel prices.

It is learnt that the state Transport department had placed orders for manufacturing 50 CNG buses which will be run across the state.

The state Transport department had already introduced two CNG buses in South

Bengal recently.In a bid to reduce pollution, the state Transport department has already introduced electric buses in the city.

At present, 80 electric buses are running on the roads. In another one year, 1000 electric buses will be added to the existing fleet.