School bus operators flag financial burden of mandatory EV adoption

Delhi school bus fleet owners have urged the Transport Department to reconsider its Electric Vehicle (EV) policy that mandates at least 10% of school buses to be electric by 2028, citing the significantly higher cost of electric buses, which they said would eventually be borne by students.

The Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy 2.0, approved on June 29, 2026, and effective from July 1, 2026, mandates schools in the National Capital to transition at least 10% of their school bus fleets to electric within two years.

Multiple delegations of transporters’ associations have met Transport Department officials to raise concerns over the mandatory electrification of school buses under the policy. They urged the government to allow CNG school buses to continue operating as before.

Cost gap

“While a CNG school bus currently costs ₹30 lakh to ₹40 lakh, an electric school bus costs around ₹1 crore to ₹1.25 crore. Making electric buses mandatory, therefore, could create a severe financial burden for thousands of transport operators and school managements,” said Baljinder Singh, member, Delhi Taxi and Transporters’ Association.

“If a vendor operates 100 buses in Delhi, he will have to buy at least 10 electric buses. For DTC and other buses, the revenue and daily running hours are different from those of a school bus. The latter runs only two trips a day. Operators are not able to recover the amount spent on buying the vehicles, while the operational cost of maintaining them is also high,” Mr. Singh said.

He said school buses operate only about 50–60 km a day and remain idle for several weeks during school vacations. “Operators would be left with no other option but to pass on the financial burden to schools, which will in turn pass it on to students. At present, if a quarterly bus fee for a student is around ₹12,000, it can go up to ₹50,000,” he added.

Fee impact

Mandatory adoption of electric buses would directly increase transportation fees for students, the operators said. “At a time when families are already struggling with rising education and living costs, such a move would place an additional burden on parents. This would be particularly difficult for lower-income, middle-income and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) families,” said Samrat Singh, president of the association.

The drivers and operators said that despite repeated meetings with the Transport Department, no solution had been found. “Which buses create more pollution? Those that run for eight hours continuously or those that make only two trips a day?” said Jail Singh, another school bus operator in Delhi.

“The Delhi government’s EV policy mandates electrification of school buses but the Central government’s PARIVARTAN scheme states that older BS-IV and below diesel buses can be replaced with new CNG or electric buses. So if the Centre is allowing CNG, then why is the Delhi government discouraging it?” Mr. Jail Singh added.

Charging stations

The operators also cited a shortage of charging stations for electric buses. “During the meetings with the Transport Department, the officials suggested the use of DTC bus charging stations. That raised the question of which buses will be prioritised in that case. As we have fixed running hours, we cannot afford to wait for long hours. Establishing our own charging station will also bear an expense of over ₹25 lakh. Who will pay for that?” Mr. Jail Singh said.

The operators further said that besides adding to the financial burden, mandatory electrification could also encourage the use of ride-hailing services, which they said would raise concerns about the safety of children.