[sustran] BMTC to cut carbon footprint with Compressed Natural Gas

[Vinay Baindur]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/bmtc-to-cut-carbon-footprint-with-compressed-natural-gas/articleshow/49148966.cms




BMTC to cut carbon footprint with Compressed Natural Gas
By Umesh Yadav
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/etreporter/author-umesh-yadav.cms>, ET
Bureau | 29 Sep, 2015, 11.35AM IST

[image: 'REDUCE EMISSION' MISSION Corporation plans to run five buses as a
pilot project from Majestic to Whitefield & Electronics City.]'REDUCE
EMISSION' MISSION Corporation plans to run five buses as a pilot project
from Majestic to Whitefield & Electronics City.



BENGALURU: Under pressure from green activists and courts, the Bangalore
Metropolitan Transport Corporation
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Bangalore-Metropolitan-Transport-Corporation>
(BMTC) may soon go for buses using compressed natural gas
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/commoditysummary/symbol-NATURAL%20GAS.cms>
(CNG) in a big way. To begin with, it will run five CNG buses.

These buses will run from Kempe Gowda bus station to the IT hubs of
Whitefield and Electronics City Once the city gets the CNG pipeline and
more gas bunks are setup in bus depots, the BMTC plans to get 400 CNG buses
in the first phase. It all however, depends on how the five buses will
perform.

The transport utility, BMTC Managing Director
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Managing-Director> Ekroop Caur
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Ekroop-Caur> said, did not want
to buy more buses in the beginning itself. "If we intro duce these buses,
we have to increase the ticket fare as the cost and he maintenance of these
buses are high compared to diesel buses. We will run these buses as a pilot
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/pilot>," she said. BMTC Director
(Information Technology) Biswajit Mishra said the utility has sought
financial aid from the Centre for this project.

[image: BMTC to cut carbon footprint with Compressed Natural Gas]


Transport Minister
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Transport-Minister> Ramalinga
Reddy <http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Ramalinga-Reddy> said CNG,
hybrid and electric buses are too expensive. "The trial runs will help take
a call on buying more buses," he told ET.

The Supreme Court <http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Supreme-Court>,
way back in 1998, directed the Delhi government
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Delhi-government> to make public
transport pollutionfree by using CNG or LPG. Four years later, the
directive was extended to all majorly polluted cities, including Bengaluru.
The Karnataka High Court
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Karnataka-High-Court>, too, took
the state government
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/state-government> to task last
year for failing to take steps to control pollution, at least by converting
diesel-run BMTC buses to CNG.

Urban expert Ashwin Mahesh
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Ashwin-Mahesh> said BMTC could
well learn some lessons from Delhi, where CNG buses were first rolled out.
"It is worth trying.We would not know how it works unless we try . Studies
show there is a great deal of difference between CNG and diesel buses," he
said.

BMTC officials said that CNG nonAC buses cost about Rs 25 lakh and AC buses
Rs 95 lakh. Authorities are wary of incurring losses, like they did with
Tata's Marcopolo buses, which had performance and emission issues. "We hope
CNG buses will result in 10-15 per cent increase in earnings gains," a senior
official <http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/senior-official> said.

C Nagaraju of the KSRTC Workers Union
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/KSRTC-Workers-Union> told ET
that their demand was to try first with 10 CNG buses.