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Eyeing for a position in the top 15 cities of the world in a competition for implementing innovative ideas, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has proposed 15 new charging stations in an initiative to promote electric vehicles (EV) in the city. These are in addition to the existing two stations, used for the public transport bus service.
“The PMPML, a public transport bus service, having a fleet of 2,431 buses, had already inducted 150 e-buses in 2019 for the commuters. It is in process of procuring an additional 500 e-buses in its fleet with 150 of them being added through the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of EV (FAME) scheme of the union government. The new buses will join the fleet by December this year,” said Rajendra Jagtap, Managing Director of PMPML.
The civic body has made two charging stations operational for the 150 e-buses of PMPML. 90 buses get charged in Bhokrainagar and 60 in Nigdi. “15 new charging stations have been proposed in the city. 13 will come up in the PMPML depot and two in the workshops,” said a PMC officer.
Further, the PMC is planning to allow private e-vehicles to use the charging stations set up in the PMPML depots. As of March 2021, the city already had 156 e-buses, 398 e-four-wheelers, 239-e-three wheelers and 3,264 e-two-wheelers plying on the city roads.
The civic body has joined hands with Vitro Motors for a hire-and-ride bike facility to encourage commuting with e-vehicles. “The company has planned to provide 10,000 two-wheeler electric bikes for its rental bike scheme. It will be setting up charging infrastructure at 500 locations with 2,000 charging points and 3,000 swapping points,” said the civic officer. The Vitro Motors has also signed an MoU with Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (Maha-Metro) to provide a rental bike scheme by creating infrastructure near metro rail stations.
The NITI Aayog had selected Pune as the country’s first Urban Mobility Lab with e-mobility as a priority.
At present, the electric charges at the charging station cost Rs 8 to 9 per unit to the power utility, with a 50 per cent discount during night usage.
Bloomberg has selected Pune among the top 50 cities for the final round of the Global Mayor Challenge. The top 15 cities would be getting one million dollars each for implementing their plan. The PMC plans to prepare a city EV readiness plan and set up a city EV Fund to provide incentives for those purchasing EV and creating infrastructure.
