All 525 electric buses to be soon operated in Tamil Nadu will be owned and run by a private bidder.
They will not be operated by State Transport Corporations (STC).
There will be no outright bus purchase by the state government.
Instead a gross cost contract (GCC) will be signed between STCs and the successful bidder.
FAME-II (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles) mandates a GCC to be signed between the respective state transport corporation and the operator (successful bidder).
Tamil Nadu has eight STCs, including MTC, Chennai.
The cost of maintenance for electric buses is much lower than diesel ones. Energy consumption cost is `25/km for diesel buses and `7/km for e-buses.