New Delhi : Adani Enterprises has forayed into the electric mass mobility segment, submitting bids for the latest tender floated by state-owned Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL) for 3,600 electric buses. Adani, along with consortium partner EKA Mobility, submitted the bid for the procurement, supply, operations, maintenance and development of allied electric and civil infrastructure for electric buses on a gross contracting basis under the Pradhan Mantri e-bus Sewa initiative.Others such as JBM Ecolife, Greencell Mobility, and PMI Electro Mobility have also bid for the large tender. EKA Mobility (Pinnacle Industries) had received approval under the INR 25,000 crore productionlinked incentive scheme announced by the Centre for the auto and auto component sector.
Adani Enterprises, EKA Mobility and CESL did not respond to ET’s queries till press time Thursday.
People aware of the development said Adani Enterprises is the lead partner in the consortium which has bid to supply the electric buses for intra-city operations.
Going All-electric
“The Centre is keen that public transport systems go all-electric and is providing incentives to state governments to set up the supporting infrastructure for successful deployment on electric buses for operating within cities. This involves setting up of transmission lines, civil infrastructure at depots,” said one of the persons cited above.
Under this scheme, the Centre is considering incentives of INR 24-27 per km to run electric buses, the person said.
In the ongoing programme, the government is looking to deploy 10,000 electric buses costing INR 57,613 crore across 169 cities on a public-private partnership model under the PM e-bus Sewa Scheme approved earlier this fiscal. Of this, INR 20,000 crore will be provided as financial support by the Centre.
Discussions are underway to replace an additional 800,000 diesel buses with electric ones by the end of the decade, which will open massive growth opportunities for stakeholders in the EV ecosystem.
Industry estimates capital to the tune of INR 1.2-1.5 lakh crore will be required to bring on-road 100,000 electric buses in the country. The government is in the process of consulting stakeholders to draw up the contours of a scheme to realise these objectives.
“Given that consortiums bidding for the tender will have to take care of operations, financing, allied infrastructure, the scope of the tenders which are being bid out/will be bid out is much larger (than the previous tenders). It is now an infrastructure (development) game and large conglomerates (like Adani) are getting in to bring in the much-needed size and scale in the EV ecosystem”, a second person in the know said.
Adani’s bid follows EKA Mobility reaching an agreement with Japan’s Mitsui & Co. and Netherlands-based VDL Groep, who together will invest USD 100 million (approx INR 830 crore) in EKA to support the manufacturing of electric buses and electric light commercial vehicles in India.
In her interim budget speech earlier on February 1, finance minister Sitharaman had said emphasis will be given to introduce more electric buses to reduce vehicular emissions and realise the country’s net-zero targets.
“Greater adoption of ebuses for public transport networks will be encouraged through a payment security mechanism,” the minister said.
