Srinagar’s Electric Buses Sitting Idle Due To The Lack Of Charging Stations

The Jammu and Kashmir road transport corporation, when carrying out its plan to deploy electric vehicles to lower vehicular emissions, seems to miss one important component. Although the department has made an acquisition to Tata Motors for 20 electric buses, the e-buses are still sitting idle due to the lack of charging stations.

For the 20 e-buses to be put into operation in Srinagar, the department needs to install the corresponding infrastructure. According to an insider, the department has also acquired the charging points. However, they have not yet been installed.

Therefore, the department has contacted the Electricity department since these chargers’ installation requires electric transformers. Since this process is time-consuming, one question has been raised, was the department not aware of this?

In fact, according to a report, the electric buses traveled a distance of more than 300km to Srinagar with special mobile charging points installed on the Jammu-Srinagar National highway.

The problematic situation points to one particular issue with the EV dream of India, the shortage of EV infrastructure. The constant push of the government towards the country’s transport electrification leads to the growth of EVs. However, if the government want to sustain this rapid growth, they will need to install EV charging points at an equal pace. For some cases, the needed energy for these stations is also something the government needs to consider.

Jammu & Kashmir has been adopting electric buses at a quick pace. Back in April, the first back of 10 e-buses was procured by the state transport department for operation in Jammu. After that, the department acquired more buses. In May, they kickstarted the trial runs. The goal of the department is to have 40 e-buses and total and put them into operations before acquiring for more.