The whole BEST (Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport) fleet operating in Mumbai will transition to electric buses, which have no emissions and are considered green technology.
Aaditya Thackeray, the state’s environment minister, made the announcement. The transition from diesel to electric buses has been in the works for a long time, and the city’s public buses will finally go electric. The idea will likely be expanded to include the suburbs as well. Public bus fleets in Aurangabad, Nashik, Pune, and Nagpur are also being converted to electric buses.
Uddhav Thackeray‘s son Aaditya tweeted after the Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray opened the refurbished BEST bus facility in Mahim “Today, we launched the latest batch of totally electric vehicles, bringing the total number of fully electric buses in our fleet to 270. The BEST has set a goal of electrifying 1800 buses by the middle of 2023. The buses are quiet and emit no pollution.”
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The chief minister also announced a number of additional welfare programmes, including a single pass for all modes of public transportation in the city. He added, in a subsequent tweet, “The island city will have a totally electric bus network starting this week, and many buses in the outlying region will be electric as well. We at @MahaEnvCC want to help cities transition their fleets to 100% electric and provide charging infrastructure.”
The Department of the Environment is pushing for a transition to electric cars, citing gasoline-related pollutants and growing fuel prices as reasons for doing so. Earlier this year, the state administration established a strategy aimed at achieving a scenario in which electric cars account for at least 10% of new vehicle registrations by 2025.
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All new electric cars will be free from paying road tax for the length of the programme, according to the new policy. In addition, property developers will be forced to set aside a certain amount of parking space for electric vehicles in both residential and business locations.
