Centre's PM-eBus Sewa scheme to take 12-15 months to roll out, says JBM Auto MD

The Centre's ambitious PM-eBus Sewa scheme, which aims to promote green mobility in the country by deploying 10,000 new electric buses in 100 cities, is likely to take 12-15 months to become a reality, said Nishant Arya, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of JBM Auto, a leading electric bus manufacturer.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Arya said that the scheme, which has an allocation of Rs 57,613 crore, will benefit more than 300,000 people in each city and take electric mobility to the grassroots level. He said that the scheme will cover the viability gap funding and enable public-private partnership models for financing, procuring, operating, and maintaining the buses.

"This is an excellent scheme, which has been really developed, which will be spanning across more than 100 cities across the country. Clearly it will be taking electric mobility to the grassroot level, and such path breaking initiatives are covering for the viability gap funding," he said.

Arya said that most of the cities would take about six months to develop their strategy for execution and another six months for the process to start. He said that he expects the delivery of the vehicles to start after 15 months.

"Now majority of these cities would be developing their strategy for execution and it should take about the next six months for them to develop their strategy and six months post that so about a year to 15 months for the whole execution to happen and things to get going. Post that the delivery of the vehicles will start happening. So that is what I personally see as the timeline and this is a huge opportunity for Indian electric bus OEMs like us, where we will be looking to see how we could be front runners with everything being developed indigenously as well as having the right capacities in place to deliver such kind of vehicles," he said.

Arya said that JBM Auto is already well equipped with a 20,000 electric bus manufacturing capacity and will plan any additional capex according to the demand.

"We are already very well equipped with a 20,000 electric bus manufacturing capacity for delivering these buses. On the other hand, if any such requirements do come up in terms of technology or other kinds of capex, then we will plan it accordingly," he said.

The Cabinet approved the PM-eBus Sewa scheme to support bus operations for 10 years. Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur said that while the Central government will allot Rs 20,000 crore towards the scheme, the remaining fund will come from state governments. The outlay is likely to be spent by 2027.

Thakur said that the scheme will reduce carbon emissions by 4.5 million tonnes per year and save about 1.2 billion litres of fuel annually. He also said that the scheme will create employment opportunities for about 50,000 people.