Ahmedabad, Surat, Hyderabad ready to roll out e-buses under PM E-DRIVE, with a budget allocation of ₹4,391 crore,

Beneath the PM E-DRIVE scheme, 14,028 e-buses are deliberate for Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, and Surat (file photograph)
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RAMAKRISHNA G

Ahmedabad, Surat and Hyderabad have issued letters of award to the bid winners, together with PMI Electro, EKA Mobility, and Olectra for the electrical buses (e-buses) beneath the Prime Minister Electrical Drive Revolution in Progressive Car Enhancement (PM E-DRIVE) scheme, sources within the authorities advised businessline including that the allocation for Delhi can also be anticipated quickly.

With this, the roll-out of the e-Buses in these cities is predicted quickly, the official stated. Beneath the PM E-DRIVE scheme, 14,028 e-buses are deliberate for seven main cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, and Surat, with a finances allocation of ₹4,391 crore – out of the full finances outlay of ₹10,900 crore of the PM E-DRIVE scheme.

“The businesses had received the bids for Ahmedabad, Surat and Hyderabad and the following step was that the States needed to problem a letter of awards, which has been carried out now. The States must pay the upfront prices and we are going to simply present the incentives as per the scheme tips,” a senior official on the Ministry of Heavy Industries advised businessline.

Incentive Construction

As per the rules, for e-buses, the utmost incentive is fastened at ₹10,000 per kWh. Nonetheless, there’s a cap on the utmost incentive as per the dimensions of the autos. For example, for e-buses with a size of 10-12 meters, the motivation is fastened at a most of ₹35 lakh/ car, and for medium e-buses (8-10 meters), there’s a cap of ₹25lakh/ car. Equally, for mini e-buses (6-8 metres), the utmost incentive is fastened at ₹20 lakh/ car.

The tender of the scheme is being coordinated by Convergence Power Providers Restricted (CESL) and operates beneath a gross price contract (GCC) mannequin the place operators handle the autos, and cities pay on a per-kilometre foundation.

Fleet Distribution

There are a complete of three,600 e-buses on this newest tender, with Hyderabad having the utmost variety of allotment (with 2,000 e-buses), adopted by Ahmedabad (with 1,000 items) and Surat (600 items) and the rollout of those e-buses would occur until the second half of 2027.

In 2025, the primary part of the bidding was carried out, wherein PMI Electro had emerged as the most important winner nationwide, securing 5,210 buses out of round 10,900 e-buses within the tender.

Printed on March 19, 2026