Electric, CNG buses on weekends, holidays: Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport's green move to cut costs pays off

An electric bus run by NMMT. Pic/Rajesh Gupta

The Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT) has set a new example by making positive changes that not only reduce their expenses and use of fuels, but also make for an environment-friendly move.

The transport body in January this year launched an initiative to run only CNG and electric buses on weekends in a bid to cut costs which has saved them around Rs 3 crore so far. With the move being a success, NMMT has now started doing the same on public holidays too.

NMMT, which was incurring losses due to the rise in diesel prices, at first decided to ply only electric and CNG buses on Sundays which see much less commuters. On the first day on January 15, NMMT saved around 8,000 litres of diesel which encouraged the officials to extend the initiative to Saturdays too.

"We had two things in mind, first to reduce the losses by reducing diesel usage, the other was to have eco-friendly transport services with zero-fuel days," said Yogesh Kaduskar, transport manager, NMMT.

An NMMT official said, "Every day we need around 8,000 litres of diesel and by observing no-fuel days, we save more than 64,000 litres of diesel every month. If there is a public holiday, the savings go up further. So far, we have saved around 2.56 lakh litres of diesel which would cost around Rs 3 crore." Officials added that the move has led to a positive change in the economic condition of NMMT.

Another official added, "Our electric charging station is coming up soon in Ghansoli. Once operational, we will introduce more electric buses." The transport body also claimed that they are planning to do away with all diesel buses in the coming year by either scrapping them or converting them to CNG ones.

IPL earnings

Not just its own initiatives, NMMT is also cashing in on IPL which has returned to Navi Mumbai after over a decade. As the audience have to park their vehicles around a kilometre or two away from the stadium for security reasons and walk the rest, NMMT deployed 25 of its buses to ferry the visitors from the parking space to the stadium. The move has meant that the NMMT makes around Rs 1 lakh revenue each match.

Existing fleet
Diesel bus: 272
Electric bus: 180
CNG bus: 120

8k litre
NMMT's daily diesel requirement