Centre green signals 10K electric buses, seven railway projects

In a bid to better city bus operations, the Centre has sanctioned the purchasing of 10,000 electric buses. As a part of the PM e-bus Sewa, the eco-friendly buses will be operated in 169 cities on public-private partnership.
The decisions were taken on Wednesday in the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Meanwhile, under the scheme’s ‘Green Urban Mobility Initiative’ infrastructure, multimodal interchange facilities and the NCMC-based Automated Fare Collection Systems will be updated in 181 cities.
The scheme will cover cities having a population of 3 lakh and above. Also, priority will be given to cities having no organised bus service.
The total estimated cost of the scheme has been fixed at Rs 57,613 crore, out of which support of Rs 20,000 crore will be provided by the Centre.
In another major decision, the craftsmen will be provided a subsidised loan of Rs 1 lakh in the first tranche, and another Rs 2 lakh in the second tranche, at a concessional interest rate of 5%.
The scheme will be launched with a financial outlay of Rs 13,000 crore on Vishwakarma Jayanti on September 17.
The Union Cabinet also approved 7 multi-tracking projects of the Ministry of Railways with an estimated cost of Rs 32,500 crore. The projects will be fully funded by the Central Government and will cover 39 districts in 9 states of the country (Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh & West Bengal).
The proposed projects aims to increase the existing network of Indian Railways by 2,339 km.
The Union Cabinet also approved the extension Digital India project with an outlay of Rs 14,903 crore. The extended programme aims to re-skill and up-skill 6.25 lakh IT professionals and train another 2.65 lakh persons in information security.
The AI-enabled multi-language translation tool – Bhashini – will be rolled out in 22 Schedule Vlll languages and 9 more supercomputers will be added under the National Super Computer Mission.