The Ministry of the Environment launched on Thursday the Program for subsidizing the purchase of electric minibuses for the transport of students, the budget allocated to it being 300 million lei, announced, during a press conference, the Minister of the Environment, Mircea Fechet.
“We are launching today, for the first time, the Electric Minibus Program for the transportation of students. It is one of the programs financed by the ministry through which we try to mitigate the impact of climate change, ensure cleaner air, participate in the decarbonization of the transport sector and reduce emissions greenhouse gases. With this program, we also fit into the European trend regarding sustainable mobility. This program complements the classic Rabla program, in addition to the Rabla plus program and, more recently, Rabla local. In practice, it will ensure the transportation of students to school and back to their homes, practically aiming to transform our communities into increasingly green ones. The budget allocated to this program, financed exclusively from the Environment Fund, is of 300 million lei. We will not only finance electric minibuses, but we will also finance the infrastructure related to them. I’m referring to the charging infrastructure. Practically, for each minibus purchased we will be able to finance an electric charging station, because of course it’s not enough just to have electric means of transport, you also have to have somewhere to charge them,” said Mircea Fechet, according to Agerpres.
According to the minister, the beneficiaries of this program will be represented by the county councils in Romania, as well as by the administrative-territorial sub-divisions of the municipality of Bucharest. The amount that each administrative-territorial unit (UAT) can receive refers to the number of students within the respective UAT.
“For UATs with less than 40,000 students we finance a maximum of 7 million lei, between 40,000 and 60,000 we finance a maximum of 15 million lei and for UATs with more than 60,000 students we can finance a maximum amount of 25 millions of lei. The financing is full. In other words, the UAT will not have to put a single leu into this application. We will finance, as I said earlier, electric minibuses, plug-in hybrid minibuses, as well as ones with CNG (compressed natural gas – CNG). We will also be able to finance recharging stations. It is important to specify that within the limit of 1% of the project value we can also finance technical assistance and consultancy expenses, as well as we will also finance the VAT related to the purchase of these vehicles, provided that it is not recoverable or refundable or compensated by any other means according to the legal provisions,” said Mircea Fechet.
The Minister of the Environment said that this program will finance minibuses belonging to the M2 and M3 category, i.e. electric, plug-in hybrid and CNG. Electric units must have a minimum range of 200 km and plug-in hybrids should have a minimum range of 50 km for electric power. Also, these vehicles should have EEC standard, as well as an identity card issued by the Romanian Auto Registry. It is also necessary that the vehicles meet the accessibility requirements for people with reduced mobility and be new.