As the state has made advances towards an electric vehicle fleet for its public transport needs recently Adviser to the state governor K Skandan flagged off the operations of the first state-run electric bus service in J&K.
Here are some interesting things to know about newly eco-friendly with no pollution electric buses introduced in Jammu & Kashmir:
- In first phase of introducing electric public transport, 40 electric buses have been allotted to J&K, 20 to Jammu and 20 to Srinagar city by JK SRTC.
- JK SRTC has procured these 40 electric buses under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme of the central government. Each bus branded ‘New Horizon Vehicle’ is 30-32 seater, costing around Rs 1 crore.
- The buses have been manufactured in Karnataka and almost all of them have reached J&K.
- These buses can travel 150 kms on being fully charged. Hence they need a charging point enroute Srinagar. To address the issue, temporary charging station would be set up at Ramban or Banihal.
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5. In Jammu division the bus service will start from Jammu Railway Station to Katra. On Jammu Katra route, passengers would have to spend Rs 70 as bus fare.
6.To add to your general knowledge, the first electric bus, among the present lot has was driven by Sukhjinder Singh, driver from JK SRTC. He has been specially trained by TATA for operating the bus.
7. The buses have several security features like CCTV camera, GPS to monitor the movement of buses, panic button in every seat and emergency door.