Mumbai: BMC’s grand EV plan runs out of power

The electric vehicle that the BMC rented in 2021

Over a year after announcing its grand plan of procuring only electric vehicles (EVs), the civic body has taken an about-turn and decided to rent CNG cars now, citing unavailability. The new tenders to lease EVs have failed to evoke any response, said the BMC, which has just on electric car in its fleet.

The state government in 2021 made a policy, making it mandatory for every government agency to buy or rent only EVs for their fleet from April 2022.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), with much enthusiasm, announced on April 1 last year its plan of gradually replacing its 400-odd passenger cars along with a few buses and trucks with EVs. Last February, it also launched a dedicated EV cell for facilitating effective adoption of electric vehicles in the city.

However, the civic body has floated a tender for leasing 299 compressed natural gas (CNG) cars. According to the tender documents, the lease period is of six months and the BMC has pegged the total cost at around Rs 10 crore.

"EVs are not available on rent in large numbers and hence we have decided to rent CNG cars. We have also cut down the tenure of the rent period to six months from the previous three to five years," a BMC official said.

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"We will try to lease EVs as per the availability once the six-month lease expires. We are hoping the availability of EVs will increase then," the official added.
The BMC currently has EV charging stations on its premises and plans to add 25 more in civic-run multi-level parking facilities.

The civic corporation currently owns around 200 cars, which are used for high-ranking officials, mayor and other office-bearers. It rents around 300 cars, including an EV that was rented from PSU Energy Efficiency Services Limited two years ago.

299
No. of CNG cars BMC seeks to rent