A media report on April 4 stated that the government warned Tata Motors that it could get blacklisted for future contracts if there is any further delay in delivering the buses.
Tata Motors, India’s biggest truck and bus manufacturer, on April 4 said delivery timelines have been communicated to buyers of electric buses and therefore, there is ‘no question of being blacklisted by the government’.
The Mumbai-based company said it has delivered 50 percent of the order by March 2019, another 25 percent will be delivered in April 2019 while the remaining buses will be completed by July 2019.
While Tata Motors bagged the maximum orders for supplying fully electric buses to various states the company was accused of not adhering to delivery deadlines.
A media report on April 4 stated that the government warned Tata Motors that it could get blacklisted for future contracts if there is any further delay in delivering the buses. The Mumbai-based company won orders from six states for supplying 190 electric buses of two different sizes. Tata Motors will supply to the cities of Jaipur, Indore, Lucknow, Kolkata, Jammu and Guwahati.
In a statement on April 4, the company attributed the delay to the shortage of batteries. “There have been some delays due to unforeseen issues in the supply of batteries that are imported from other markets and we are addressing them on priority. We have been in constant discussion with all our customers and have kept the authorities apprised of all the challenges”, said the company.
“Timeline of deliveries have been communicated at various levels and deliveries have been planned accordingly. So there is no question of being blacklisted by the Government,” added Tata Motors.
The company has already supplied buses to Kolkata, Indore and Lucknow. A total of 22 buses have been delivered and an additional 72 buses are in transit to Lucknow, Kolkata, Indore, Guwahati, Jammu.
Some of the prestigious orders such as that from Mumbai’s BEST undertaking went to Olectra-BYD (formerly Goldstone-BYD), an Indo-Chinese joint venture company.
BYD emerged as the lowest bidder for three contracts cumulatively supplying 290 electric buses to Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad. However, following no subsidy release from the central government for 130 buses the company is said to be vying for the supply of only 160 buses instead.
The Bombay High Court had to intervene and pull up BEST for arbitrarily quashing the contract for sourcing 40 electric buses from Olectra which had already manufactured 24 such buses by then.
Tata Motors also pointed out there has been a lack of infrastructure support for 68 chargers that are used for the charging purpose.
“The company has also provided support for installing the EV chargers as per the readiness of the infrastructure at each location. As on today, a total of 70 chargers have already been installed. The remaining 68 chargers are pending due to unavailability of the required infrastructure at the customer’s end,” added Tata Motors.
