bampijhyala, kathmandu
The Lumbini Development Trust (LDT) has successfully tested the electric buses it plans to operate under its ‘Dhamma Yatra’ transportation service.
The Trust had received five electric buses and 14 vans from the Asian Development Bank three years ago under the latter’s Clean Energy Project. Of them, LDT began operating five buses on six routes around Lumbini in September to test their capacities.
As part of the trial, dubbed the buses’ ‘mechanical testing’, the buses made a total of 527 trips around 16,384 kilometres from September 29 to October 30 and carried more than 20,000 passengers for free. According to the vehicles’ mechanical testing unit, the Lumbini-Belahiya route was the most popular where the electric buses served 5,783 passengers and made 160 trips.
Similarly, the buses carried 5,072 people and made 131 trips on the Lumbini-Tilaurakot route, 2,270 passengers and 48 trips on the Lumbini-Ramgram route, 1,346 people and 46 trips on the Lumbini-Butwal route, 2,814 people and 56 trips on the Lumbini-Devdaha route and 2,573 people and 68 trips on the Lumbini-Ramapur route, informed Bishwo Poudel, coordinator of the testing unit.
During the testing, the buses plied their designated routes, with drivers provided by the police, the Armed Police Force and the army, and transported passengers without charge. Initially, LDT had decided to carry out the testing for 15 days during Dashain. However, public demand prompted the Trust to extend it to Chhath.
Dhundi Raj Bhattarai, treasurer of LDT, said that the technical aspects like the buses’ charging, gears and handling were tested. “We have successfully tested everything and concluded that everything works properly,” he told The Rising Nepal. Bhattarai informed that the Trust planned to begin commercial operation soon after obtaining green number plates (to carry tourists) for the automobiles.
