Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay has cleared 1,000 air-conditioned electric buses for Chennai’s MTC and Rs 500 crore to wire its depots to charge them.
Chennai’s city bus fleet has 755 electric buses today. If this order is carried through, it will have well over twice that number.
The approval came in an official release from the government on Monday 9 November. It covers 1,000 new air-conditioned electric buses for the Metropolitan Transport Corporation, the மாநகர் போக்குவரத்துக் கழகம், to be procured during the current financial year under the Gross Cost Contract model.
The Chief Minister also sanctioned Rs 500 crore for electrical and mechanical work at bus depots across the city, for charging stations and mechanical support facilities. The release said the move would upgrade the city’s public transport, curb pollution and give passengers a safer and more comfortable ride. It named no depots and gave no delivery schedule.
The money for depots was set aside in August
Neither number is new. Finance Minister N. Marie Wilson’s budget for 2026-27, presented on 5 August, said 1,000 air-conditioned electric buses would join the MTC fleet under the Gross Cost Contract model this financial year, and earmarked Rs 500 crore in the Revised Budget Estimates for electrical and mechanical infrastructure at depots. The Transport Department’s allocation that year is Rs 13,561 crore. Monday’s approval is the step that moves those lines from the budget book to procurement.
Spread across the order, the depot money comes to Rs 50 lakh for every bus (Rs 500 crore over 1,000 buses).
How a Gross Cost Contract works
Under the model, MTC does not buy the buses outright. A private operator supplies, runs and maintains them, and MTC pays it a fixed rate for every kilometre run, while keeping control of routes, timetables and fare collection. MTC’s global tender for the 1,000 buses, floated earlier this year, sought 12-metre low-floor air-conditioned electric buses along with the allied electrical and civil works. The operator also builds and maintains the charging equipment at the depots it uses.
Depots are the hard part.
Each electric bus needs a charging point and a depot built to handle high-voltage supply, which is why the Rs 500 crore sanction sits alongside the bus order. MTC upgraded six depots for its second phase of e-buses, according to a notice it posted on 14 October 2025. In August, the 130 new AC e-buses went to two depots, 80 to Alandur and 50 to Central, and were put on 25 routes between them. The new sanction is meant for that kind of work at a much larger scale: transformers, chargers, and the workshops where an electric bus is serviced. The release from the Secretariat did not say which depots will get the money or in what order, and MTC has not yet named the operator or operators that will run the 1,000 buses.
For Context
MTC’s move to electric buses has come in stages. Its first 625 low-floor electric buses, bought for Rs 697 crore, run from five depots.
The second phase, supported by the World Bank, is for 750 air-conditioned electric buses. The Chief Minister flagged off its first batch of 130 at the Secretariat on 25 August 2026, taking the electric fleet to today’s 755, of which 355 are air-conditioned. The Alandur depot’s share runs on 15 routes including the MAA1, MAA2 and MAA3 airport services.
The scale of the change is clearer against the whole fleet. In March 2026 MTC was running more than 4,130 buses on 671 routes from 35 depots, carrying about 33.6 lakh passengers a day.
Checked against official sources on 12 November 2026.
Sources
- Press release, Government of Tamil Nadu, on the approval of 1,000 air-conditioned electric buses for MTC and Rs 500 crore for depot infrastructure, 9 November 2026
- Budget Speech 2026-27, Finance Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, 5 August 2026
- Press release, Government of Tamil Nadu, on the flag-off of 250 new buses including 130 AC electric buses for MTC, 25 August 2026
- Metropolitan Transport Corporation (Chennai) Ltd: notices including the upgrade of six depots for E-Bus Phase II, 14 October 2025
