The story so far
Jammu Smart City Limited has been running 100 electric buses in the city, and for most of that time they have had nowhere of their own to park. In August the Chief Minister laid the foundation stone for a dedicated depot at Bhagwati Nagar — a ₹23.04 crore project that JammuBeat covered when the fleet finally got a home.
The obvious question then was whether the fleet would grow to justify it.
What's new
On 27 August, JSCL signed an agreement with PMI Electro Mobility Solutions Private Limited to add 25 more electric buses to the city's existing fleet, under the Centre's PM e-Bus Sewa scheme.
The agreement was signed by Dr Devansh Yadav, Chief Executive Officer of JSCL, on behalf of the Housing & Urban Development Department, and Chandra Kant Goyal, COO – SPV Operations at PMI Electro.
That takes Jammu from 100 buses to 125. A further 75 buses are proposed for the city under the same scheme, which would make the total augmentation 100 additional buses — and a city fleet of roughly 200. Procurement of those remaining buses is being handled nationally, in a unified process run by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
The new buses are to operate from the Bhagwati Nagar depot, which is still under development.
What it means if you take the bus
Fleet size is the thing that decides waiting time. A 25% increase in buses does not automatically mean a 25% cut in the gap between them — that depends on how the buses are distributed across routes, and on the depot being finished — but it is the first hard commitment to more buses since the original 100 went into service.
For students paying half fare and women travelling free on these routes, more buses is the difference between a service you can plan a day around and one you hope turns up. It is worth watching two things from here: when the Bhagwati Nagar depot is actually commissioned, and which routes the 25 are assigned to.
Neither the delivery timeline for the 25 buses nor their route allocation has been announced. Nor has a date for the remaining 75, which depend on the MoHUA procurement.
Sources: JK Monitor and Daily Excelsior.
