Delhiites will be able to enjoy a ride in air-conditioned buses run by private players as the city Government prepares to roll out the ambitious scheme from August. According to officials, the premium bus service will be launched under the Delhi Motor Vehicles Licensing of Aggregator (Premium Buses) Scheme, which the Delhi government had notified last year, which aims at reducing intracity usage of private vehicles and curbing pollution. "Under the scheme, two aggregators, namely Uber and Aaveg, have been granted licenses for operating the buses in Delhi-NCR and are finalising the routes on which the services will be started," an official from the transport department said. "These two aggregators are onboard and the talks with them regarding the final nitty-gritties are in the last stage. We are targetting to flag off the buses by the end of this month or latest by the first week of August," the official added.  According to the scheme, a "premium bus" is any full AC luxury bus with a seating capacity of no less than nine passengers, pre-reserved reclining seats, and equipped with Wifi, GPS, and CCTV. The scheme stipulates that the onboarded bus must not be more than three years old if it runs on CNG, and the buses joining the service after January 1, 2025 must be electric. It also requires that the applicants must have a corporate or branch office located in the National Capital Region. An official from Aaveg, requesting anonymity, said the company has finalised some routes in west and central Delhi. The bus fleet will comprise electric and CNG vehicles. "By end of December, we plan to switch to an all-electric bus fleet. The buses will be flagged off either by the end of this month or the first week of August. We have conducted the trial and reccee of all the routes that the buses will run on. The buses will have 41 seats for as many passengers. People will be able to book seats using the Aaveg app," he said. In a statement in May, Uber had said customers will be able to pre-book seats on their preferred route by choosing the Uber Shuttle option on the Uber app. Each shuttle vehicle will be able to accommodate between 19 to 50 passengers and will be operated by local fleet partners utilising Ubers technology. Sources from the transport department said the two aggregators have to submit the routes, the driver details and bus details to them. Under the scheme, licence holders will be permitted to determine bus routes and provide fares that are dynamic and no lower than the peak fare of the AC buses run by the Delhi Transport Corporation..

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