The Delhi Cabinet under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday approved the induction of 190 low-floor CNG air-conditioned buses under the government’s Cluster scheme. The lowest bidder, IndClan Mobility Private Limited, will provide these buses for 16B CLF under the Gross Cost Model and will be operating from Ghumanera depot.

According to an official statement, a tender for cluster number 16 CLF having 350 buses was floated twice but only a single bid was received on both occasions and, therefore, the tenders were cancelled. The Delhi Cabinet on 29 August 2021, decided to split the tender having Cluster-ID 16A CLF and 16B CLF with 160 and 190 buses respectively.

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In response to the tender floated by the Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Ltd. (DIMTS) on 5 March 2021, a total of eight bids were received by the Transport Department through the e-procurement portal of the Delhi government and the Financial Evaluation Committee found IndClan Mobility Private Ltd as the lowest bidder.

The Delhi government currently operates 3,033 non-AC and AC buses under the Cluster scheme.

The statement said earlier this year, the Delhi Cabinet had also approved a proposal for the award of contract for 160 buses and with the addition of these 190 buses, the total number of Cluster buses will reach 3,383 and the total bus fleet in Delhi will reach an all-time high of 7,140.

As many as 300 electric buses will also get inducted into the DTC fleet early next year. A total of approximately 3,500 new electric buses are getting added to the DTC and Cluster fleet as per the induction plan of the Transport Department.

These new low floor CNG AC buses will be fully compliant with BS-VI emission standards and equipped with state-of-the-art facilities like Real-Time Passenger Information System, CCTVs, panic buttons, GPS and other facilities besides being differently-abled-friendly.

These buses will start arriving next year, the statement added.

Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot shared the news and tweeted, “Congrats Delhi! Cabinet today, under the leadership of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal cleared the proposal for induction of 190 low floor AC CNG buses fitted with CCTV, GPS, panic buttons and differently-abled friendly.”