State-owned Convergence Energy Services Ltd (CESL) floated tenders to acquire 5,580 electric buses to be deployed across five main cities.The bid, which also comprises 130 double-deckers, is worth around Rs 5,500 crore . CESL, an arm of Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), told the media that the request for a proposal called Grand Challenge was the biggest ever acquisition plan of electric buses. The buses will be deployed in New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Surat and Kolkata in the first phase.

Delhi has asked for 1,500 buses under the scheme and stands ready to provide state subsidies where they are needed, said Kailash Gahlot, transport and environment minister of Delhi.

The first lot of e-buses is likely to hit the roads by July 2022, as per the statement. CESL aims to improve its help to state governments in attaining their electric mobility targets and further develop an infrastructure for electric mobility in the nation.

The scheme aims to ease the working costs for cities and clear bottlenecks of acquiring e-buses by state transport utilities.

It is observed as a big step towards making India a net-zero or carbon-neutral country by 2050 and getting closer to attaining energy independence by 2047.

The scheme is likely to help realise lower costs due to increased demand and attain high quality benchmarked technology, as per the statement.

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Also read: CESL to establish another 900 EV charging stations in 2022