Olectra’s 10,022 order book gets halved as Maha Govt terminates 5150 e-bus contract

MUMBAI: HYDERABAD: 28th May 2025 On the same day that Olectra Electric announced its full fiscal year results, revealing an order book of 10,022 buses, Maharashtra State Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik announced that the contract for the 5,150 buses was being terminated during a meeting at the MSRTC office.

Minister Sarnaik wrote on the microblogging site X after meeting with senior MSRTC officials: “The company in question has not been supplying the 5,150 leased electric buses. It was decided to cancel the State Road Transport Corporation’s tender agreement with this company after discussing it at the meeting.

In July 2023, the MSRTC awarded the contract to the Olectra-Evey Trans Private Limited consortium to supply, operate, and maintain the 5,150 electric buses.

Although the contract has been in place for nearly two years, officials noted that only 220 buses have been delivered and are currently in use.

Operating these buses is the responsibility of Every Trans Pvt Ltd, a sister company of Olectra Greentech Limited, according to the contract. According to the conditions of the wet lease agreement, the bus supplier is responsible for both operations and maintenance.

Olectra and Mumbai’s BEST Corporation, which manages the city’s public transport system, are also having similar delivery issues. As of March 2025, Olectra had only delivered 536 of the 2,100 buses that were contracted.

Olectra has been experiencing delivery problems, according to industry sources, due to problems with its vendor, BYD, which supplies the batteries for the buses. “BYD China was unhappy with Olectra’s management and effectively stopped delivering the batteries to the company, causing its order book to become choked,” an insider told EV Story.

Olectra Chairman K.V. Pradeep denied this claim in his comments on today’s results and emphasised the company’s commitment to using BYD’s Blade Battery technology in its electric buses. “We unveiled our latest technological advancement, the Blade Battery Technology, at the Bharat Mobility Global Expo 2025. It promises improved performance, safety, and reliability through longer ranges and faster charging times,” he stated.

Senior officers from the transport department informed the MSRTC that they had worked with Olectra to provide a revised schedule for the delivery of 1,000 buses by May 22. “Until today, we have not received a single bus,” they said. This creates uncertainty about the organisation’s ability to supply these buses in the near future. Consequently, the decision was made to terminate the tender agreement signed with the company.”

Olectra also revealed its results today, indicating that it has delivered 2,718 electric buses during the fiscal year and has an order book of 10,022 buses. Compared to FY 24’s total revenues of ₹1,114 crore, Olectra’s FY 25 results showed a 56% increase to ₹1,801.9 crore.

With a 78% increase in profit before tax (PBT) to ₹187.88 crore and a remarkable 77% increase in profit after tax (PAT) to ₹139.21 crore, Olectra Greentech’s full-year EBITDA increased by 49% to ₹276.32 crore. I

The company’s EBITDA increased 36% to ₹58.35 crore in Q4 of FY25, while its total revenue was ₹448.92 crore. Significant growth was also seen by PBT and PAT, which finished at ₹29.25 crore and ₹20.69 crore after rising by 45% and 30%, respectively.

Olectra delivered 219 units in the final quarter of FY 25, up from 131 units the year before. One of the biggest producers of all-electric buses in India, Olectra offers a number of models, including the K9, K7, K6, X2, and others. For long-distance operations, they offer a variety of bus sizes, ranging from seven-meter to twelve-meter models.