Karnataka’s public transport went green as the State’s Chief Minister, Basavaraj Bommai, flagged off the State's first electric buses for public transportation. A total of 90 such buses will be supplied to the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) for its electric bus project by JBM Auto Ltd.

In a Press release issued by JBM it was stated that, "This e-bus service marks the first ever rollout of electric buses in the state of Karnataka. These buses shall be operated from the Kengeri, Yeshwantpur and KR Puram bus depots.”

The release further said: "The JBM ECO-LIFE electric buses will be running under the metro feeder services in the Smart City initiative. Earlier this year, JBM Auto had received an order of 90 non-AC electric buses for the city of Bengaluru.”

The 25 buses flagged are part of the first batch of 40 delivered to BMTC while the remaining vehicles will be delivered in the coming months.

These non-AC buses have a seating capacity of 33 passengers and a driver and are equipped with six Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (NMC) battery packs. This enables the vehicle to cover a distance of 120 kilometres on a single charge with a maximum speed of 70 kilometres per hour.

The modern features incorporated in these buses include Real Time Passenger Information System (PIS), Panic Buttons for emergency, Automatic Bus Vehicle Location System, CCTV cameras, Public address system, Stop request buttons, etc among others.