Tata Motors and Goldstone Infratech bag orders for electric bus contracts

Mumbai/Chennai:  Tata Motors Ltd of Mumbai bagged electric bus supply contracts in 6 cities Similarly Goldstone Infratech Limited of Hyderabad, an electric bus manufacturer won electric bus contracts in 3 cities. As reported, Both the manufacturer quoted bids closely 30% lower than competitors Mahindra and Mahindra Limited (M&M), Eicher Motors Limited (EIML) and JBM Solaris.

TML bagged e-bus orders in 6 cities – 40 e-buses each for Jaipur, Indore, Lucknow, Kolkata and 15 buses in Jammu &Kashmir and Guwahati. Similarly, Goldstone-BYD JV won contracts for e-buses in 3 cities – 40 buses for Mumbai, 100 e-buses for Hyderabad and 150 e-buses for Bengaluru. Ashok Leyland Limited (ALL) had won contract for 50 e-buses for Ahmedabad’s BRT corridor.

Department of heavy industries sanctioned USD67.69m which is 60% of the share to buy the vehicles to 11 states for the procurement of electric buses, electric taxis and e-autos as a pilot project under the FAME scheme in December 2017. This leads to open up the tender for procurement of e buses to 11 major cities.

TML placed bids between Rs77lakh and Rs99lakh per bus for different models. Its bid for Rs77lakh per bus for outright purchase in Kolkata was the lowest bid. Even Goldstone-BYD’s bid price of Rs29.28 per km in Bengaluru and Rs36 per km in Hyderabad was termed as unviable by a rival bidder.