North West Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC) has decided to induct 450 Electric buses. New buses are likely to join the fleet of NWKRTC soon.
Taking to Twitter, NWKRTC MD Bharath Selvan posted that “Plans are underway for the introduction of 450 electric buses in NWKRTC at the earliest”.
“The government has permitted the RTC to invite tenders under the GCC model. A combination of Rural and City services in Hubballi, Dharwad, and Belagavi is being considered” he added.
The GCC model requires the operator to procure the Electric buses as well as implement the charging infrastructure, which saves cash-starved state transport undertakings from making the initial capital investment.
For its investment, the operator is paid based on the number of kilometers the buses are operated. NWKRTC will deploy its conductor, while the driver will be deployed by the operator.
According to an article in Kannada Prabha, 200 buses will be deployed to run mofussil services, 150 buses for city services and another 100 buses will be deployed for BRTS services.
Currently, NWKRTC operates 4539 schedules with 4830 buses. The addition of Electric buses helps NWKRTC to phase out the old buses for the convenience of travelers.
Also, NWKRTC is likely to get ‘Ambari Utsav’ buses soon. The Ambari Utsav buses are Volvo 9600 Sleeper Coaches that come with a special Scandinavian design.
With headquarters at Hubballi, NWKRTC has 9 divisions under its jurisdiction situated at Hubballi, Dharwad, Sirsi, Bagalkot, Gadag, Belagavi, Chikkodi , Haveri and Hubballi-Dharwad City.