915 Electric Buses Ordered For Use In India

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India has some of the most polluted cities in the world. That air pollution harms human health. It also contributes to many premature human deaths each year. While most of us don’t work in public health and have never heard of the term environmental health, there is plenty of evidence showing air pollution contributes to millions of human deaths every year. The World Health Organization (WHO) shares:

• Ambient (outdoor) air pollution is estimated to have caused 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2019.
• Some 89% of those premature deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, and the greatest number in the WHO South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions.
• The combined effects of ambient air pollution and household air pollution are associated with 6.7 million premature deaths annually.

It’s probably safe to say most of us who read CleanTechnica articles have never been to the most polluted cities in India, so we don’t have direct, personal experience with how severe the air pollution is there. We probably don’t study air pollutants and their harmful health effects on humans and non-humans. Yes, carbon emissions are bad for climate change, but toxic air pollution goes far beyond carbon emissions.

“Loni in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh was the world’s most polluted city in 2025, according to a report by Swiss air quality monitoring firm IQAir. Loni averaged PM2.5 levels of 112.5 micrograms per cubic meter, the report said, referring to hazardous fine particles in the air.

“The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that safe levels of PM2.5 should not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

“Three Indian cities were among the four most polluted — Byrnihat in the northeast and capital, New Delhi.

“Last year, Byrnihat was named the world’s most polluted city in IQAir’s 2024 report.

“Additionally, the world’s 25 most polluted cities were all in India, Pakistan and China.”

One way to clean up city air is to replace diesel buses with fully electric ones, fully electric as in not utilizing hybrids which use fossil fuels.

I just wrote an article about the UK government funding the purchase of 484 fully electric buses for mass transit. Now comes word of over 900 electric buses ordered for use in India.

“GreenCell Mobility has received a Letter of Award (LOA) from Telangana State Road Transport Corporation in consortium with EKA for the deployment of 915 electric buses across Telangana under the PM E-Drive Scheme.

“This large-scale deployment is a step forward in the Government of India’s vision to electrify public transportation, reducing urban pollution, lowering dependence on fossil fuels, and enhancing the efficiency and quality of mass transit systems.

“At GreenCell Mobility, we continue to drive impactful change by enabling cleaner, smarter, and more responsible mobility solutions for communities across the country.”

The PM E-Drive scheme is a government program that provides incentives to support electric vehicle adoption. Fortunately, there are many countries outside the US with governments exercising their own autonomy to go forward with the sustainability movement.