Commercial vehicle maker Ashok Leyland has said it would start delivery of the first 50 ultra low entry (ULE) buses to the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) soon as part of its Rs 1,190 crore contract to supply 875 buses this fiscal.
The company also said it would fulfill its contract to deliver 5,000 buses to various state and local transport bodies under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in 2009-10.
"We will start supply to DTC within a short period and the first batch would consists of 50 ULE buses. The vehicles are ready and prototypes have already been handed over to DTC," Ashok Leyland Executive Director (Marketing) Rajiv Saharia told reporters here.
He said the delivery, which was originally meant to have started in March, got delayed because of changes in specifications of the vehicles.
The company had secured a Rs 480 crore contract for supply of the ULE buses from DTC earlier this year. The two parties had also signed a Rs 710 crore contract for maintenance of the buses over a period of 12 years.
Major commercial vehicle makers are to deliver 2,200 buses to DTC this fiscal, of which Ashok Leyland has a contract for supply of 875 ULE buses, both AC and non-AC in the price range of Rs 49.9 lakh to Rs 59.3 lakh.
Saharia said Ashok Leyland would be able to fulfill the order of 5,000 buses to various transport bodies during the fiscal. The company has so far delivered around 350 buses under the JNNURM contract.
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"Our 50,000 unit capacity plant at Pantnagar would go on-stream in a few months. Besides, we are also increasing capacity at our Alwar plant from 200 ULEs a day to 300 very soon. So we have the capacity," he said.
The company, along with the country's largest auto maker Tata Motors, had bagged the lion's share of the Rs 5,000 crore JNNURM contract.