BMTC makes third attempt, passes new tender for 300 e-buses

The Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has initiated their third pursuit of hiring 300 electric buses which comes under the FAME scheme, around three years post the Centre released the funds with officials expecting to receive the most benefit from the power attained by the attempts of procuring 90 electric buses, which will be based on a state sponsored scheme.

The BMTC officials have been actively trying hard from a period of six months for assuring the success of the third tender. For the planning to receive a major outcome, a total of six meetings were conducted with the chief bidders to obtain their possible inputs to ensure a healthy bidding process.

Following which, the BMTC has modified some of the clauses of the tenders, thereby giving a little relaxation in the rules and invoking alterations that will be a benefit for the corporation and also the companies.

The recent tender pertaining to operations of 12-metre long e-buses, non-air conditioned, will be having a time-frame of one year for the successful bidder to sanction the vehicles after the letter of the award is signed. The complete tender process will be taking a minimum of three months, but, the officials have given a conferred time-limitation of December 1 for opening the financial bids.

The 300 electric buses will be operational according to Gross Cost Model and the BMTC will be paying remuneration to the bus provider according to the “annual assured kilometre’ model. The corporation has given the assurance regarding the average bus kilometres be travelled by all the buses in a persistent period of 10 months following the calendar, initiated from the Commercial Operation Date of the respective vehicles, and will estimate over 63,000 km.

Earlier, a couple of tenders have been canceled, the first by the decisions of the then transport minister DC Thammanna and secondly by costly bids. Sources revealed that attempts are being made to assure more bidders, particularly from the public sector such as National Thermal Power Corporation, will be involved in the process and further make the bidding highly competitive. The officials, however, have been in conversation with the seven chief companies in the last few months as for bidding another tender to hire 90 e-buses for the Smart City Programme.