Patna: Patna Smart City Limited, the special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the Smart City project, has floated a tender for selection of an agency to implement the e-rickshaw project under the Centre's Smart City Mission programme.
The e-rickshaws will ply on select routes, instead of the ones auto rickshaws take. This will be part of an umbrella plan towards improving air quality. The e-rickshaw programme is supposed to be implemented with help of funds received from private firms under corporate social responsibility (CSR). The expected expenditure on the project is Rs 10 crore.
Apart from e-rickhaws, 10 e-buses are also supposed to ply on the city's roads. An additional Rs 10 crore is supposed to be spent on that.
Worth mentioning here is that the World Health Organisation report puts Patna at fifth position among most polluted cities in the world.
"As per plan, various routes have to be identified in the city on which only e-rickshaws will be allowed to ply. A committee has been constituted for this," sources said. "The pre-bid meeting regarding selection of agency will be held on September 27 while the last day of submission of bid is October 11," said a Patna Smart City Limited official on condition of anonymity.
"Under the Smart City Mission, cleaner options for intermediate mode of public transport will be launched in Patna. The aim is to introduce a clean source of transport, along with improvement in livelihood of cycle rickshaw peddlers by operationalising e-rickshaws - a new mode of transport, with flexible routes and lower fares compared with auto rickshaw," the source said.
The Smart City Mission would undertake many projects, like solar rooftops on government buildings, e-charging points for vehicles, bicycle docking stations, cycle tracks and smart bus stops.
As per the Smart City Mission's guidelines, the total state and central financial assistance for each city would be Rs 1,000 crore (state and Centre have to provide Rs 500 crore each). However, as far as Patna is concerned, it would take up projects worth Rs 2,771 crore as approved under the mission.
