Bangalore, dubbed as the IT-capital of India, introduced the first hybrid electric bus in the country on Thursday, to meet its mass transport requirements.
The state-run Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) will be operating the electric bus on a trial basis for three months and, based on the success of the operations, it will be expanding the services, a BMTC official informed.
With the growing number of vehicles, India is grappling with pollution-related problems. Though our closest neighbour China has started learning from its mistakes, India is yet to adapt steps towards greener, sustainable modes of transport.
Even though Delhi started a step with the introduction of CNG-Electric hybrid in 2010, the move never made any progress due to the high cost involved.
The new electric hybrid introduced in the south Indian city of Bangalore is currently the only electric bus being put to use by a transport agency in the country. Hence, it is no surprise that pollution is a perpetual problem in India, which has about 142 million registered vehicles.
Delhi was caught recently in the world news, after reports emerged that it has surpassed Beijing for having the worst air quality. A report, carried by the Hindustan Times, claimed that New Delhi had earned the dubious tag of being the world's most polluted city, according to the Environmental Performance Index (EPI).
Bangalore is also a metro city, just like Delhi, and is facing high-level of pollution with the increased road traffic. In this case, adopting greener sustainable measures like the new electric bus would help in addressing the challenges of this growing city.
According to BMTC, the 29-seater electric hybrid will run six trips on the Majestic to Kadugodi route (335 E) daily. The zero emission vehicle can run for 250km per charge and each charge takes about 6 hours.
