Overview
- Union Home Minister Amit Shah flagged off 40 electric buses in Gandhinagar on Sunday, June 28, and Vadodara began service with 30 AC buses on Monday, June 29, as the first city rollouts under the national PM eBus Sewa programme.
- Gandhinagar’s launch includes a newly built Sargasan depot (about Rs 17 crore), 18 planned routes and distance-based fares set from Rs 5 to Rs 30 with travel free for the first 15 days to encourage ridership.
- Vadodara’s pilot of 30 buses is the start of a phased supply in which the central sanction has been raised from 100 to 250 buses, with 130 to arrive in the first phase and dedicated charging stations already placed across five city sites.
- Both city fleets are fully air-conditioned and fitted with accessibility and safety features such as hydraulic ramps or lifts, reserved seating, CCTV, passenger counting, driver monitoring, GPS tracking and electronic ticketing that accepts QR, UPI and app payments.
- The local rollouts put the national PPP-style PM eBus Sewa—which aims to place 10,000 electric buses with central financing—into operational testing and will be used to guide wider scale-up of routes, depot spending and service plans in other cities.