The UT administration is considering extending the age-limit of school buses to 20 years, with the state transport authority (STA) recommending an additional five-year extension.
“All commercial diesel/petrol vehicles in the city are registered with an age-limit of 15 years. If a commercial vehicle like bus has been used for more than 15 years, its registration is not extended,” said an official. Now, an exemption is sought for only school buses, wherein an additional five years can be given to them.
With the quotas on registration of the diesel buses in place under the Chandigarh EV Policy 2022, the registration of the new diesel-run school buses was stopped in May this year.
“Even with the administration relaxing the quotas, there is little scope for new registrations. The base year for the calculation of the quotas is 2021-2022. It was immediately after the Covid period. Not many diesel-based buses were registered during this period in the city as the economy was still in the recovery mode. So, the overall quota is already low for the policy years,” said the official.
Meanwhile, concern has been raised over the pollution impact of older buses in the city. “The administration will weigh all aspects before taking a final decision on the issue,” said the official.
The registration of around 50 diesel buses is pending with the STA in the new financial year. Most of these are school buses. In the last financial year, 40 e-buses were registered in the city, all of which were of the CTU. “No private player had registered the e-buses. A total of 162 diesel and five CNG buses were registered by private players,” said the official.
This year too, the transport department’s e-buses are likely to be the first to be registered with the STA.
As per the original caps under the EV Policy, in the second year of its implementation, of all the buses registered, 50% have to be e-buses. In the third year, this cap will be 80% e-buses, fourth year of policy 90% and in fifth year 100% e-buses will be registered.
But these targets were revised recently by the administration.
