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More than 500 electric buses under the PM-eBus Sewa scheme are now operational across 23 cities, with daily ridership crossing one lakh.
The scheme, approved by the Union Cabinet on 16 August 2023, funds 10,000 air-conditioned electric buses on a public-private partnership model.
Total outlay is Rs 57,613 crore, of which the Central Government's share is Rs 20,000 crore, with operations supported for ten years.
It is implemented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and deliberately targets smaller cities where organised city bus services were absent or inadequate.
Guwahati, Bhavnagar, Nagpur and Chandigarh were the first cities to begin operations, in February 2026.
PM-eBus Sewa does not hand a city a fleet. A private operator buys, owns, maintains and staffs the buses, and the city pays it a fixed rate for every kilometre run, keeping the fare revenue itself. The Centre's subsidy tops up that per-kilometre payment. The design solves the two things that have historically killed municipal bus services: the enormous upfront capital cost of a fleet, which electric buses make worse, and the maintenance burden of an ageing depot. It also transfers vehicle-availability risk to the operator, who is paid only for kilometres actually operated. What it does not transfer is demand risk - if ridership is thin, the city still owes the operator for every kilometre, which is why the daily ridership figure crossing one lakh matters as much as the bus count.
Simple Analogy: The city is not buying a car; it is buying a taxi service by the kilometre. The taxi company worries about the vehicle, the city worries about filling the seats.
Deploy 10,000 air-conditioned electric buses for city bus services on a PPP model, and fund the supporting depot, charging and ticketing infrastructure
Key: Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs; Rs 57,613 crore outlay with Rs 20,000 crore central share; ten years of operational support
Accelerate electric vehicle adoption through demand incentives and charging infrastructure, including support for e-buses procured by state transport undertakings
Key: Ministry of Heavy Industries; the successor to the FAME schemes
Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles - demand incentives for electric two-, three- and four-wheelers and buses
Key: Ministry of Heavy Industries; the predecessor programme under which the first large tranches of Indian e-buses were sanctioned
One interoperable contactless card usable for metro, bus and other transit payments across the country
Key: Built on the RuPay platform; PM-eBus Sewa buses are to use NCMC-based ticketing
GS Paper 2 > Government policies and interventions; GS Paper 3 > Infrastructure and environment: urban transport and emissions
General Awareness > Central government schemes and their ministries
General Awareness > Scheme outlays, PPP models and central share
General Awareness > Transport schemes and current events
A contract in which a private operator is paid a fixed amount per kilometre operated while the authority retains fare revenue and demand risk.
The technology layer - vehicle tracking, scheduling, passenger information and control-centre systems - that lets an authority manage a bus fleet in real time.
An interoperable RuPay-based contactless card intended for use across metro, bus and other transit systems nationwide.
The shortfall between what a service earns from users and what it costs to run, which the central subsidy under this scheme is designed to bridge.