WRI Publications

Streamlining Procurement Practices for Accelerated Adoption of e-Buses

--Manuscript Draft--

Manuscript Number: WRI-D-21-00123

Full Title: Streamlining Procurement Practices for Accelerated Adoption of e-Buses

Article Type: Publication Plan

Corresponding Author: Anirudh Ray, B. Plan.

INDIA

Other Authors: Aparna Vijaykumar, B. Tech., M. Plan.

Sutanu Pati, B. E., M. B. A.

Pawan Mulukutla, B. E., M. S.

Additional Information:

Question Response

What is the type of your publication? Working Paper

Please indicate the programmatic Cities

affiliation of the lead author:

Please define your workstream: Urban Mobility

 as follow-up to "Please indicate the
programmatic affiliation of the lead
author:"

Please define which solution this NSM - New Sustainable Mobility

publication is contributing to?
 as follow-up to "Please define your
workstream:"

Please list the donor that is supporting Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative E-Bus Mission (Funded by the German Federal
this work: Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ))
 as follow-up to "Please indicate the
programmatic affiliation of the lead
author:"

Who will approve the publication and Sudeshna Chatterjee

reviewer selection from your
Program/Center/IO?

Who will be the program/center/IO comms Rama Thoopal

lead for this knowledge product?

Please indicate all International Offices, Cities; China; Africa; India

Global Programs, and Global Centers with
a subject-matter interest in your
knowledge product.

When do you expect the publication will 09-10-2021

be ready for internal review?

What is your target release date? 10-01-2021

What language will your publication be English

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produced in?

Will this publication be co-branded? No

Will this knowledge product be published Yes

using a WRI knowledge product
template?

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Publication Plan Click here to access/download;Publication Plan;Pub-
Plan_Streamlined_e-Bus_Procurement.docx

WRI PUBLICATION PLAN

This is a living document. Authors should feel free to update it and upload the most recent version to the online peer
review management system. Click here for information on WRI’s publications processes.

Review and Production Process

Working title: Streamlining Procurement Practices for Accelerated Adoption of e-Buses

Expected number of pages*: Approximately 12

List your proposed internal and external reviewers and explain how they cover the bullets below.
For reports, issue briefs, and guidebooks, a minimum of 4 internal and 4 external reviewers is required. Additional reviewers are
recommended, as reviewers may drop out. You are strongly encouraged to select reviewers who bring the following perspectives:
1. someone with expertise on the subject to enhance scientific/analytical soundness (at least 2 of your external reviewers)
2. someone with an opposing viewpoint (challenging comments will help strengthen your thesis)
3. someone who is representative of your target audience
4. an internal reviewer with expertise on the methods (e.g., an economics reviewer if paper has economic content)
5. an internal reviewer from a WRI office outside that of the lead author, subject to language constraints
Co-authors cannot serve as reviewers.

 Internal reviewers:
o Dr. O. P. Agarwal: As the CEO of WRI India, he is an experienced practitioner in public policy matters
related to urban development, poverty alleviation, capacity building, governance, and environment. As
part of the Indian Administrative Service, he has also served as the Joint Secretary of Urban Transport
in the erstwhile Ministry of Urban Development and the Secretary of Transport in Assam. Further, he
is the principal author of India’s National Urban Transport Policy and was also the World Bank’s Global
Urban Transport Advisor, making him an apt reviewer for the paper.
o Vijay Anadkat: An expert on public transport with over 20 years of experience, he has been supporting
the Gujarat government in adopting electric bus (e-bus) fleets in various cities of the state. He has been
associated with WRI for more than eight years and currently works with the organization in the capacity
of a Senior Fellow.
o Sanjay Bhatia: With over 30 years of experience in the automotive sector, he is also currently working
in the capacity of a Senior Fellow at WRI. He led the heavy goods and passenger vehicles vertical of Tata
Motors, and was responsible for government-related procurements as well. In his pivotal role, he
oversaw the e-bus business and participated in multiple e-bus procurement tenders – which makes him
an ideal individual to review this document.
o Shilpa Kharwal: She has over eight years of experience in the public transport sector and is engaged
with the Bus Karo platform. She is currently working on streamlining operations and dovetailing
investments in public transport, to catalyze bus adoption. She has previously worked with Shakti
Sustainable Energy Foundation on advancing the design and implementation of policies on sustainable
transport to mitigate increasing emissions from the transport sector.
o Chintan Daftardar: Chintan - a Senior Manager at WRI India - contributes to various public transport
initiatives, electric mobility strategies, transit policy implementation, institutional capacity building
measures, and transport-sector research. He has a wealth of experience in bus operations planning,
procurement methods, formalization of paratransit, public bicycle sharing, fare integration, and
mobility plan development.

 External Reviewers:
 o Dario Hidalgo: He has an extensive experience in the transport sector across different geographies,
especially in Latin America. He was the director of the transport practice at Embarq and is currently
based in Colombia. His understanding of e-bus deployment in Latin America can provide a useful lens
that the paper can be reviewed with.
o Abhijit Lokre: He is the founder and partner of The Urban Lab which is working in areas of urban
transport policies, street design, public transport planning, transit infrastructure, non-motorized
transport planning and design, etc. His knowledge of the e-bus ecosystem in India makes him an astute
reviewer for the paper.
o Prashant Bachu: He is the founder and CEO of GearChange and has previously worked on the Bus Karo
Plus project that includes capacity building and envisages creating a peer-to-peer learning network
among city bus agencies. He has also conducted performance analyses of city bus routes, including the
direction based Big-10 routes in Bangalore that resulted in improved operations and the introduction
of express services.
o Laghu Parashar: He is the Deputy Project Director at GIZ having 17 years of experience in planning,
design, and implementation of urban public transportation projects. He has experience working with
various sustainable transport projects and has been instrumental in drafting “Urban Bus Specifications”
(UBS-II) and other model documents for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. His work in the e-
bus and STU (State Transport Undertaking) space makes him an ideal person to review the paper.
o Ashok Agarwal: He is the MD and CEO of GreenCell Mobility, an entity which aims to enter the e-bus
operations space in a scalable manner. With an experience of ~25 years, he has extensive knowledge
of a wide variety of industry-oriented sectors like automobiles, infrastructure, power and telecom.
o Siddharth Srivastava: He is a partner at Khaitan and Co., and has worked with legal teams of leading
banks and financial institutions. He has experience in syndication, debt restructuring, project finance
and structured financial matters – and delves into e-bus procurement from the same lenses.
o Joseph Teja: He is a Young Professional at Smart Transportation & Electric Vehicles division, NITI Aayog,
who provides technical advice and policy inputs to the decision makers to architect the National
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) policy framework for India, National Common Mobility Card (NCMC)
and Electric Vehicles uptake in India. His work on e-bus finance posits him as a suitable reviewer for the
paper.

* All new working papers and issue briefs have a limit of 10,000 words. See word limit details here.

Strategic Questions

State your target audience, with as much specificity as National policy making institutions and departments
possible: Public transit agencies
Transit service operators
E-bus manufacturers
How do you envision the target audience will use this publication to help achieve the intended outcomes defined in
your strategy/project plan? Please explicitly state the outcome in your response.
The working paper intends to:

 Explicate for the target audience the key factors which are currently hindering smooth and effective e-bus
procurement in India, and suggest measures to address such factors
 Highlight, using a case-based approach, various business models, contractual levers, and procurement
mechanisms - to streamline the e-bus procurement process in India, thereby catalyzing e-bus adoption.

2
The intended outcome of the paper is to offer expert views to the intended audience, on the existing e-bus procurement
process in India and suggest pathways, practices, models, clauses, and frameworks to streamline the same. It is
expected that the intended audience will use the views presented in the paper to streamline existing ebus procurement
practices through effective policy mechanisms to catalyze e-bus adoption.

What new insights, information, or analysis will your publication offer? Please cite 3 relevant publications when
explaining how it adds to existing knowledge.
There are currently no publicly available publications in India, that deal with the scope of this working paper. However,
the following two documents discuss the broader subject matter in their respective scopes:

1. E-bus procurement under FAME-II (UITP, 2020): The analysis provides insights to policy makers and authorities
tendering out e-buses, based on learnings from tenders carried out under FAME-II. It summarizes data from
publicly available FAME-II tenders and feedback collected by UITP India through various secondary data sources
and interviews. However, the study is able to consider a limited number of cases and tendering lacunae under
its ambit, owing to its positioning in the tendering timeline.

2. Training Needs Assessment for Electric Buses in India: Volume I - Identification of Training Needs (GIZ, 2021):
The study focuses on training and capacity building needs (related to e-buses) of public transport authorities,
and also looks at potential skill development mechanisms. The research identifies clear training needs in public
transport authorities across an e-bus’s life cycle functions, various departments, and hierarchies, to compliment
various efforts being made in building a sustainable ecosystem for e-bus adoption in India. The purview of the
study extends only to the needs and methods of training and skill development for successful e-bus
proliferation in India, despite its integral positioning and holistic view of the e-bus ecosystem.

3. Enabling mechanisms for scale up of adoption of e-buses in Indian cities (UITP, 2019): The study is aimed at
development of guidance material for public transport agencies on contracting of e-buses, and dissemination
of findings with central government entities on the FAME scheme. The findings of the research are of a
prefatory nature and are unable to cover all procurement-related gaps for e-buses, possibly owing to the
nascency of the e-bus ecosystem in 2018-19 – when this study was carried out.

The working paper, though focused on scrutinizing pre-existing information pertinent to the e-bus ecosystem, covers
some gaps in existing publications that are highlighted above. To that end, the study entails:
 A detailed review of past tenders and insights on contractual clauses and procurement methods that hinder e-
bus deployment and operations.
 A thorough examination and illumination of challenges faced by stakeholders in e-bus procurement.
 Explication of innovative and successful business models and procurement practices followed in India and
across the globe, and their applicability.
 Parlance and learnings from the renewable energy sector, with focus on the solar energy sector in India that
can be applied to e-bus procurement.
 Ideation regarding formation of a central government entity to facilitate tendering for e-buses and to bring
uniformity and consistency to the process.

Briefly describe:

1. The question(s) or thesis statement(s) that your publication addresses.

2. Your methods (what evidence you will collect, how you will collect and analyze it, how it will help deliver
credible findings)

3
 1. The working paper aims to explicate contractual conditions, business models and procurement mechanisms
that can streamline the e-bus procurement process in India. To that end, multiple past tenders and current
procurement practices shall be examined and documented.
2. The paper will rely on the following methodology to deliver the findings:
o Discuss the current status of e-bus procurement in India
o Identify key factors in the existing e-bus procurement process that hinders smooth deployment of e-
buses, based on stakeholder consultations and scrutiny of tender documents/ bids
o Explicate the contractual clauses, business models and procurement methods that can streamline e-
bus procurement in India, based on case studies and internal analyses of pre-existing publicly available
data

What outcomes will illustrate that the publication has been successful?
For example, the recommendations are adopted in legislation, or investors incorporate the analysis into investment decisions.
The working paper is targeted at multiple key cogs in the e-bus procurement process in India. The following outcomes,
if achieved, will indicate success for the paper:
1. A revised Model Concessionaire Agreement document, which is streamlined to lower e-bus procurement costs
for transit agencies.
2. Better-informed decision-making processes for transit agencies in India, which in turn, inform their e-bus
procurement tenders.
3. More awareness amongst the decision-making, business-oriented and regulatory entities about potential
business models, procurement and deployment mechanisms, etc., to ease e-bus deployment in India.
4. Possible scale up of e-bus adoption in the country with reduced cost and processing time implications.

Identify any WRI projects outside your program/ center/ international office working on related issues, and note
steps you will take to ensure institutional coherence e.g., including them as internal reviewers
The team working on this working paper is also working on an ongoing engagement with Convergence Energy Services
Limited (CESL), a joint-venture-subsidiary of the Government of India, to assist with bulk procurement of e-buses for
nine cities across the nation. The support that the team is providing to CESL revolves around bettering the existing
procurement practices. As the team that is supporting CESL is the same as the team working on the paper, coherence
in institutional views on all related platforms shall be ensured by all team members in their respective capacities.

Aside from the aforementioned engagement, there is no project outside the team’s program (electric mobility)/ center
(Ross center for sustainable cities)/ international office (India) that touches upon related issues, and a situation is not
expected to arise wherein institutional coherence is lacking.

Is the publication likely to include anything that might be viewed as controversial?

The publication is a working paper on the e-bus procurement process in India, and majorly delves on contract
conditions, business models, global practices, etc. It does not include any information relating to individuals or
institutions that may potentially be viewed as controversial.

If you are using data, how will you make it available for others to use in line with WRI’s Open Data Commitment?
As the paper essentially scrutinizes pre-existing publicly available information in the ecosystem and does not rely on
any primary data, there is yet to be seen a need for making any of the used data/ information available for others. The
use of publicly available information for developing the paper is also aligned with WRI’s Open Data Commitment.

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Draft Outline
The draft outline should summarize the proposed content of the executive summary (including any expected key
findings or recommendations), each chapter, and the conclusions. Note that forewords are required for all WRI
reports. For process, see this guidance on forewords .

The working paper does not consist of an executive summary, owing to its short and crisp format. The outline of the
working paper is elaborated upon below:

1. Chapter 1 - Introduction: The paper opens with a discussion on the need of electrified public mobility in India,
and how e-buses fit into the transition pathway for the same. It then highlights the policy framework
pertinent to e-bus adoption in India, and the role of the FAME-II scheme (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing
of (Hybrid and) Electric vehicles in India scheme, Phase II) in driving e-bus procurement and deployment
forward. The paper then explicates the status of e-bus deployment in India with cases of procurement
practices followed in cities and states. The chapter touches upon various potential reasons for a slower-than-
expected adoption.
2. Chapter 2 - Hindrances in e-Bus Procurement Deployment: The paper streamlines the discussion on low e-
bus adoption to potential reasons for the same. This chapter ideates on the reasons for unsuccessful e-bus
tenders, and delves into the reasons in detail. It further explicates tender conditions and contractual clauses
which hinder e-bus deployment by: reducing the bankability of the overall contracts; raising bid rates beyond
a sustainable amount; making e-bus operations more difficult than expected; etc.
3. Chapter 3 - Recommendations:
a. Revisions to Tender Conditions: This sub-chapter lists and explains the clauses that must be part of
the e-bus procurement tenders and contracts that can: heighten the bankability of the contracts;
lower procurement costs, and; make e-bus operations lucrative for prospective operators, thereby
bringing down cost to public agencies and streamlining e-bus procurement and deployment
processes.
b. Innovative Business and/ or Financing Models: Here, the practices adopted for successful
deployment of e-buses are elucidated. In this sub-chapter, stress is given on innovative models that
have eased the financing, procurement and deployment of e-buses. Further, learnings are drawn from
the listed business and/ or financing models that can be applied to the Indian context.
c. New Procurement Mechanisms: New mechanisms to strengthen and streamline the process of e-bus
procurement in India are explained in this chapter, such as: demand aggregation for bulk
procurement of e-buses; a central-level e-bus procurement committee to oversee, manage and
regulate the procurement process; and procurement practices that draw parlance from solar energy
procurement in India.