Towards greener roads: Suvendu flags off new fleet of electric buses

Kolkata: State Transport minister Suvendu Adhikari flagged off 10 electric buses from Paribahan Bhawan II in Kasba on Wednesday.

"Electric buses are popular among the city-dwellers. These buses will ply in New Town and Rajarhat, connecting them to the city. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has always wanted the common man to get better transport facilities and we will introduce more electric buses for the same soon," said Adhikari.

He also handed over permits to operators of inter-state Volvo buses, Gatidhara vehicles and trauma care ambulances.

The success of electric buses in New Town is going up by leaps and bounds, with more than 2.14 lakh passengers availing the services in the past

19 months. Three electric buses were introduced in the township on May 1, 2018.

Debashis Sen, chairman of the Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) had flagged them off at a function. It may be mentioned that New Town is the first township in the state to have introduced electric buses.

The state Transport department has already introduced 80 electric buses that are plying on different routes in Kolkata. The eco-friendly vehicles are more spacious than their diesel-powered counterparts, having more seats and larger storage capacity.

Route number 1 starts from Pride Hotel and comes back to Pride Hotel via NBCC. The major stops are Pride Hotel, Axis Mall, Balaka More, Jal Vayu Tower, Uniworld City, Shapoorji, Karigori Bhavan, Narkel Bagan and New

Town.

Meanwhile, Route number 2 is Pride Hotel via Narkel Bagan and Route number 3 is Pride Hotel via Eco Space.

While the electric buses are plying across the city for now, the state Transport department has also decided to ply electric buses in Haldia, Siliguri, Asansol, Durgapur and other places across Bengal.

It may be mentioned that both in India and abroad, special drives have been taken up to introduce electric vehicles replacing the fuel-driven ones to reduce environmental pollution.