The Hindu Business Line : Indians on a ‘green drive’ as CNG vehicles touch over 3.54 lakh

New Delhi, Jan. 1 Spiralling crude prices coupled with wider availability of alternate fuels, and lower maintenance cost has spurred more Indians on a ‘green drive’ with the number of CNG vehicles in the country touching over 3.54 lakh, as per industry estimates.

Interestingly, Mumbai has lesser number of CNG stations compared to Delhi, but has more vehicles running on the alternative fuel. Mumbai with 127 CNG stations has about 1,83,429 vehicles against Delhi that has 153 outlets with 1,50,000 vehicles. The other cities that have CNG stations include Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Vadodara, Agartala, Kanpur, Bareli and Lucknow.

The demand is not only driven by mass transport vehicles, but is catching up among passenger cars as well. Within the National Capital Region, the number of private cars that ply on CNG are just a little less than the Government mandated CNG autos. Currently, about 70,000 autos, 50,000 cars, 12,000 buses and 5,000-6,000 taxis and light commercial vehicles are operating on the fuel.

In smaller cities, too, automobiles run on CNG seem to be getting popular, with Vadodara clocking 3,630 vehicles, Kanpur and Bareli 6,801, Agra 5,215 and Lucknow 5,430.

Cost effective solution

Mr N.K. Minda, Chairman and Managing Director, Minda Group, which supplies CNG kits through its group company Minda Autogas said, “Rising cost of petroleum internationally is bound to affect the Indian prices sooner or later. This would make CNG/LPG fuel the cost effective solution for the consumer. Secondly, with the infrastructure for gas transportation rapidly being put in place by players like GAIL and Reliance, the availability of alternate fuels, which was a big issue, is likely to be resolved in the near future.”

Pricing prime reason

The New Delhi-based supplier for CNG fitments Nugas Technologies India cites pricing as the reason for demand increasing across various models in the passenger car segment. “With the running cost of CNG substantially lower than petrol or diesel, we are finding car owners of every model including Maruti, Chevrolet, Hyundai and Honda preferring the fuel,” said Ms Anita Sharma of Nugas.

According to Mr Dilip Chenoy, Director General , Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, the trend among consumers shifting to such alternate fuels would only increase with the automotive industry gearing up to provide various options on this platform.

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