West Bengal govt plans to switch to electric mode in public transportation in Kolkata by 2030

West Bengal government has prepared a road map for switching to electric mode in public transportation sector in Kolkata by 2030. The state transport department will be overseeing the project.

It was for this project that Kolkata has received the C40 Cities Bloomberg Philanthropies Award in the green mobility category in Copenhagen, Denmark recently.

West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC) has already introduced a fleet of electric buses (-e-buses) that connect Kolkata and its expansive suburbs. The plan is to have an entire city fleet of 5,000 electric buses by 2030.

This would bring down per annum carbon dioxide emission by 7,82,560 tonnes. All these e-buses will replace old polluting buses. The shift will be gradual. Completing a 100 per cent shift is a decade-long process, according to a senior official of the Transport Department.

Already 80 electric buses are plying across Kolkata. Soon, New Town, which is also the booming IT hub of Kolkata, will see 50 e-buses. A hundred e-buses are being bought for Haldia and Durgapur-Asansol.

The government is ready with a plan of setting up 241 charging stations for electric vehicles in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area.

Not just buses, the West Bengal Transport department is also planning battery-run ferry services along the Hooghly. The vessels are one of the pivotal and cheapest modes of transport for thousands of passengers.