MSRTC e-bus ready for Pune to Ahmednagar trip

The bus will run at a speed of 80 kmph.

Jigar Hindocha

Pune: The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC), Pune division will be operating the first electric bus (E-bus) on the route from Pune to Ahmednagar on June 1.

MSRTC plans to add more E-buses on other routes as well. As of now, officials are busy setting up a new workshop for charging, maintenance and repair work.

In a phased manner, MSRTC will be getting 1,000 e-buses and 2,000 CNG buses under the central government’s ‘faster adoption and manufacturing of hybrid and electric vehicles (FAME) scheme.

As part of this, the MSRTC is expected to get the first slot of 150 e-buses in the next two months after which these buses will operate on various routes across the state.

“In one charge, these e-buses go up to 200 to 250 km depemding on the load factor and the number of passengers travelling. Once more buses are added to the fleet, several routes such as Pune to Mumbai, Pune to Kolhapur and Pune to Aurangabad will also be started,” said Ramakant Gaikwad, MSRTC Pune divisional controller.

The MSRTC was constituted on June 1, 1948, and the first bus from Pune to Ahmednagar was flagged off.

Nearly 1 lakh employees are working at 248 depots across Maharashtra.

Did you know?

1. The transport body is going to operate 6 daily services operating the 12-meter long e-bus having a seating capacity of 43, according to the release.
2. The bus will run at a speed of 80 kmph.
3. According to the release, Laxman Kevate, the conductor of the first bus that operated on the Pune-Ahmednagar route on June 1, 1948, will flag-off MSRTC’s maiden e-bus “Shivaee”.
4. MSRTC is one of the biggest state-owned public transport undertaking in the country with a fleet of over 16,000 buses. The now loss-making corporation had been ferrying over 65 lakh passengers daily before the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020