Principal Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department (H&UDD), Dheeraj Gupta, on Saturday chaired a comprehensive meeting to review progress on electric bus project for Jammu and Srinagar.
Pertinently, Jammu and Kashmir government is procuring a fleet of 200 electric buses, 100 each for capital cities of the Union Territory, Jammu and Srinagar. The Jammu Smart City Limited (JSCL) and Srinagar Smart City Limited (SSCL) are the project executing agencies.
During the meeting, Chief Executive Officer JSCL, Rahul Yadav, apprised of action taken so far besides elaborating on plans for early commencement of electric bus service in both the cities. He informed that Letter of Intent (LoI) has been issued to M/S TATA Motors Limited for supply and operations of electric buses while the LoI has been also issued to M/S Chalo Mobility Private Limited to establish National Common Mobility Card compliant Digital Ticketing Solution.
The meeting was also informed that the contract agreement with both the service providers will be signed soon.Asserting that establishment of e-bus services is very crucial project and will play a big role towards adopting a clean mode of transport, Dheeraj Gupta asked project executing agencies to expedite the process and clear all existing bottlenecks at the earliest.
He Principal Secretary was informed that the land has been finalised for setting up charging and parking depot in Jammu while few locations have been shortlisted in Srinagar for the same. Principal Secretary issued strict directions to SSCL to finalise land parcel for establishment of Bus Depot and hand over the same to TATA at the earliest. He also set deadline for SSCL for completing all formalities.
He further asked both the service providers to visit Srinagar to initiate the ground survey besides completing other requisite modalities. He asked the General Manager, Planning & Urban Development from SSCL to provide all the support to the visiting team.
He also nominated General Manager, Finance, Jammu Smart City, as nodal officer for both cities for expeditious execution of the project and assured all possible assistance to the service providers.
Principal Secretary informed that the process is also going on to identify routes in both capital cities which will enhance commuters' travelling experience besides raising revenue realisation.
Principal Secretary was also informed that commissioning of electric buses in both the cities will play a vital role in reducing pollution levels. Besides, the electric buses have also been equipped with state -of -the-art facilities like real time passenger information system, live tracking, panic button, location system, CCTV, stop request system, online ticket booking, payments through QR code and other security related features.
Additional CEO, JSCL, Hitesh Gupta, K S Nathyal from PWD (R&B) Department, Chief Engineer, Sandeep Seth and Rajinder Kumar Gupta, Superintend Engineer from JPDCL, Pankaj Sharma and Vijay Gupta from Jal Shakti Department, Vineet Gupta from UEED, Vinayak Sharma, S B Matta, Ajay Singh from TATA Motors Limited were present in the meeting while Arun Gidroniya from Chalo Mobility Private Limited joined the meeting online.