Electric buses in Chennai are transforming daily life, cutting smoke and noise at busy stops like Adyar Beach.
With over 30% of the MTC fleet now electric, Tamil Nadu has seen a 22% drop in fine particulate matter in five years.
Experts hail cleaner air and quieter streets, while warning that true climate gains depend on greener electricity and stronger public transport.
Seventy-five-year-old Urdawala is busy stringing a garland in the scorching sun near the Madras Transport Corporation (MTC) bus stop at Adyar Beach in Chennai. “I don’t know why I have been feeling less of this bright sun for the last one-and-a-half to two years. Otherwise at first, it was unbearable and my body used to burn.”
She says that earlier the smoke was so thick at the location that it was difficult to breathe. But now, some strange ‘ghost’ buses have started coming, which neither make noise nor spew smoke.” Urdawala’s ‘ghost buses’ stand for electric vehicles i.e. EVs.
In fact, she is unaware that the buses that used to come and park at this stop earlier were diesel-powered ones and that now, EV buses come and stop here. Due to the diesel-powered buses, the air pollution at the stop was high, which is why Urdawala used to feel more heat and burning senstations. But in the last nine years, with more than 30 per cent of EV buses in the MTC bus fleet, Urdawala has started feeling less heat due to less noise and smokeless buses.
According to environmental research firm Climate Trends, Tamil Nadu has recorded a 22 per cent reduction in fine particulate matter in a period of five years.
According to the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, Chennai, Tiruchirappalli and Madurai are the three cities in the state where National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) activities are underway. According to the Steering Committee of NCAP, the estimated reduction in air pollution from 2019 to 2026 has been kept at least 40 per cent according to the new guidelines of the Programme.
As of March of 2026, MTC has a fleet of 4,130 buses. Of these, 255 EV buses are operating from two depots and 125 from three depots. In addition, the process of inducting 500 EV buses is in its final stages. Apart from this, the tender for 1,520 EV buses is to be issued by the last week of July.
Chennai-based automobile expert Sushil Mehta says that EVs do not have tailpipe emissions (smoke from the vehicle’s silencer), which improves local air quality.
Mehta adds that EVs also reduce noise pollution. However, the total benefit to the environment depends on how electricity is generated. As India’s power grid becomes cleaner with more use of renewable energy, the climate benefits of EVs will also increase.
However, S Shanmuga, a technical expert and alumnus of IIT Madras, says that the promotion of EVs in Tamil Nadu as well as other parts of India in the name of clean energy is not going to be very effective at the moment because the current policy is just a tactic to transfer air pollution from one state to another.
He adds that before making any policy, it is very important for governments to analyse the cost and take into account the ability of the common man to bear that expenditure. At the same time, there is a need to make the public transport system better, adequate and convenient so that more people can give up the temptation of private vehicles.
Meanwhile, the state government is also preparing to open up employment opportunities in the EV sector in its budget for August 2026. Which is why it has announced this initiative in its revised budget for August 2026-27. Three crore rupees have been allocated in the current financial year for the initiative.
Under this, a special skill development program will be started to train 22,500 people in the next five years. The main objective is to teach necessary technical skills to those mechanics who are currently dependent on the servicing and maintenance of petrol and diesel vehicles so that they can repair and maintain EVs and their battery systems.