Bihar Plans CNG Car Fleet For Patna

by Ritu Versha 4 years ago Views 2769

CNG
 

Bihar’s capital, Patna, is the seventh-most polluted city in the world, according to a 2018 World Air Quality Report by IQAir AirVisual and non-profit Greenpeace. Its biggest source of air pollution is petrol and diesel-powered private and commercial vehicles. To get around the situation, the Bihar government plans to convert all commercial vehicles running on fossil fuel to be powered by compressed natural gas (CNG). For which, the government has also prepared a deadline, starting with Patna.


Owners of all heavy vehicles in Patna will have to switch over to CNG to keep air pollution in check, transport department authorities said. Registration numbers of vehicles will also change as they opt for CNG.

However, the biggest challenge for the Bihar government is to install CNG filling stations across the state. Long queues outside the CNG filling station is a common sight every day. As per government data, there are only 1742 CNG stations for supplying CNG to 28,86,027 vehicles in the country. Whereas Patna has only two at the moment. The government has announced that three more will be added by mid-October. A target has also been set to install 459 CNG filling stations in the state in the next five years.

The move hasn’t gone down smoothly with owners of commercial vehicles though. Describing the move as a punishment, Ranjeet Kumar, secretary of the Patna chapter of All India Road Transport and Workers Federation, said: “This will destroy our business and leave our families to starve.”

"Auto drivers, who earn Rs 400-500 a day, will have to shell out about Rs 35,000 to get a CNG kit, which will be difficult for them," he added. 

Of Bihar’s 922,500 commercial vehicles, 225,000 are auto-rickshaws, 190,000 trucks, 325,000 tractors, 75,000 buses, and 7000-7500 are tanker lorries.

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