The Nagpur Municipal Corporation has issued a Request for Proposal (RfP) to select a bus operator for the procurement, operation, and maintenance of 40 midi electric buses on gross cost contract services.

The tender is floated under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles II (FAME II) program. The selected operator will also be responsible for the establishment of charging infrastructure, including the electrical and civil infrastructure, at the depots for ten years. The scope of work includes the manufacture and supply of electric buses, as well as the operation and maintenance of buses on the routes specified by the authority.

The operator will bear the electricity charges for the activities other than the charging of the buses, and the operator will provide two separate electric meters for the purpose. After the completion of the contract period, the infrastructure developed at various depots will become the property of the authority and the operator will have no right on the infrastructure, both electrical and civil.

The last date for the submission of bids is January 13, 2020, and a pre-bidding meeting will be held on December 24, 2019.

The prospective bidders will have to submit an amount of ₹2.98 million (~$41,935) as the earnest money deposit (EMD).

Foreign bus manufacturers not having a registered office and manufacturing facility in India will not be considered for the bidding process.

According to the tender document, the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) should be a registered electric bus manufacturer with bus manufacturing facilities in India and should have delivered at least 32 electricity buses over the last three financial years in a single order or at least 20 buses over the previous three financial years in two orders or at least 16 electric buses over the last three financial years in three orders. The OEM should have a minimum average annual sales turnover of ₹420 million (~$5.89 million) for the last three financial years.

The bus operator should have a minimum average annual turnover of ₹105 million (~$1.47 million) for the past three financial years, and the net worth of the operator should be more than ₹50 million (~$701,735) as on March 31, 2019.

Over the past few months, several states have been issuing tenders and RfPs for electric buses, and this points to a marked shift in the country towards electric mobility.

Recently, Kerala floated a tender to procure 250 non-AC electric buses under wet-lease on the OPEX model for the zones of Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, and Ernakulam. The tender has been issued for 100 buses for the Thiruvananthapuram zone, 50 buses for the Kozhikode zone, and 100 buses for the Ernakulam zone.

Earlier, the Jaipur City Transport Services Limited issued a request for proposal for the supply, operation, and maintenance of 100 fully air-conditioned electric buses in the city under a public-private partnership. The project is expected to cost ₹1.75 billion (~$24.4 million), and the buses will be procured on a gross cost contract basis (GCC).

Image credit: Ramesh NG from Bangalore, INDIA [CC BY-SA 2.0]