Himachal Sets Precedent for Others by Switching Official Fleet to Electric Vehicles

The Himachal state department of transport has become the first in India to switch its complete fleet of official diesel and petrol vehicles to electric vehicles.

The government is looking to use electric vehicles for all of its departments in a the time span of a year. These will be based on sustainability and will boast of a cost efficient system. Consequently, the Himachal Road Transport Corporation will see an addition of 300 e-buses to its fleet. An outlay of Rs 400 crore has been sanctioned towards this, as revealed by Chief Minister Sukhjinder Sukhu.

The HRTC, critical to the state economy, has been suffering losses because of the rising prices in petrol. As per officials, e-buses will help bring down the everyday costs by Rs 1.5 crore borne by the HRTC.

The government has been working proactively towards building an EV ecosystem in the state. Very recently, in a bid to up the adoption of EVs, the Himachal Pradesh administration said that it will be deploying 100 electric vehicle charging stations in the Sirmaur district. Charging stations of 50 Kw capacity will come up on state highways and near the bus stands. Here electric vehicles can be charged between 15 minutes to one hour.

Charging stations will also be set up in prime locations that will also entail The Secretariat, Himachal Sadan and Bhawans as well.

The Chief Minister maintains that the state aims to become a green energy state by 2025 and e-mobility has an essential role to contribute in this regard.