A subsidiary of Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited, has supplied only 185 out of 2,100 electric buses that were to be delivered before August 2023 to the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking, an autonomous body under Mumbai’s civic corporation, reported The Indian Express on Friday.

The subsidiary, EveyTrans Private Limited, received the work order in May 2022. According to the response received on a Right to Information application by the newspaper, it delivered 20 buses in 2022, 72 buses in 2023 and 93 buses this year till July 4.

On Friday, The Indian Express reported that the 15th finance commission had allocated Rs 620 crore to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation for air quality management over three years. Of the total, the civil body sanctioned Rs 493 crore to the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking.

The civic transport and electricity provider, however, spent only Rs 205.8 crore towards advance payment to EveyTrans, according to the newspaper.

Officials of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking told the newspaper that the payments are staggered as the buses are being delivered in a phased manner.

“The rules state that 20% of manufacturing cost should be paid to the agency in advance after the work order is issued,” the newspaper quoted an unidentified official as saying. “Following this, 40% of the cost would be paid after receiving the consignment of buses, while the remaining 40% would be supplied to the fleet operator after six months of the successful commercial operation of buses.”

The official said that EveyTrans had also deposited a bank guarantee, which could be forfeited “if they start stretching the schedule of delivery by a larger extent”. The official also stated that 30 more buses are expected to be delivered next week.

The Hyderabad-based Megha group of companies were the second-largest buyers of electoral bonds, according to the data released by the Election Commission in March. The group bought bonds worth Rs 1,186 crore. Of this, bonds worth Rs 966 crore were purchased by Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited.

At Rs 664 crore, the group was the biggest donor to the Bharatiya Janata Party between April 2019 and January 2024. Of the total, Rs 584 crore came from Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited. Its subsidiary, Ghaziabad-based Western UP Power Transmission Company, gave another Rs 80 crore to the BJP.

Cause of delay

The general manager of Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking, Anil Diggikar, told The Indian Express that the supplier has “cited certain issues relating to spare parts that have impacted the manufacturing” for the delay in the delivery of the electric buses.

“We sent them a notice last year and have followed it up with further notices,” said Diggikar.

The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking officials said that they have sent at least three notices to EveyTrans since September. The most recent notice was sent in April.

A spokesperson for EveyTrans told The Indian Express that the company was facing problems in acquiring parts for manufacturing the battery. “In our EV buses, the battery is laid down in the chassis and 60% of the manufacturing cost goes behind it,” the spokesperson told the newspaper.

They said that they could not procure the necessary raw materials in time due to the tensions between India and China, which contributed to the delay.

The spokesperson also said that the company had only one production facility till January this year but another one was added in February.

“As a result, now production has started to pick up,” they said. “Besides BEST, we are also supplying buses to MSRTC [Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation], Nagpur City, Hyderabad, Surat and Dehradun, among other cities. Hence, there is a huge demand and supply gap that has been created over time with us.”

Also read: BJP’s top donors: Megha, Reliance-linked firms, Keventer, Birla, Bharti, Vedanta