As part of its green campus initiative, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) will introduce 14-seater electric buggies on its Powai campus from January-end.

For starters, 10 e-buggies will be operated for six months. The service can be availed by students, staff and visitors on pay-per-ride basis to commute within the 5-km campus. The vehicles will be manufactured and maintained by Bengaluru-based Maini Group.

“The e-buggies will be an alternative mode of transport for students, who currently use autos, private and shared bicycles or walk on the campus. This is part of our green campus initiative,” said Soumyo Mukherjee, dean of student affairs, IIT-B.

The decision to introduce e-buggies was taken months after the management discontinued mini bus service. The buses were popularly known as tum-tums. There were 17 buses.

The service, managed by IIT-B Students’ Welfare Society, was introduced in 2008 after the institute banned students from using motor vehicles on the campus. But the service was discontinued a few months ago after it failed to yield desired results.

As per an article on Insight, an in-house portal, the limited number of mini buses failed to cater to a large number of students. Also, most vehicles were out of service for want of maintenance, said an IIT-B official.

While students paid a lumpsum amount to avail tum-tum service, a 2-km ride on e-buggy will cost ₹10.

Besides operating on four fixed routes within the campus, the contractor will operate services during non-class hours as per demand.

“The buggy service will offer a convenient and faster mode of transport. Earlier, students had to wait for the entire tum-tum to fill before starting their commute. We also plan to introduce a mobile application to track e-buggies on IIT-B campus,” said R Prahalad, vice-president, business development, Maini Group.

First Published: Dec 26, 2018 14:52 IST