Delhi to be linked by 4 intercity green corridors with CNG buses.

The national capital will soon be connected to Chandigarh, Jaipur, Agra and Haridwar through green corridors that will be conducive for running CNG-powered vehicles.

Speaking at an event to launch digital customer initiatives of Indraprashtha Gas Ltd, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan said, “We will be inaugurating green corridors that connect New Delhi from all four directions. They will link Delhi to Agra, Chandigarh, Jaipur and Haridwar. These corridors will be inaugurated in February 2019.”

"These were first mentioned by Pradhan in 2015 and were initially supposed to be operational by 2017. “We are in the process of procuring eight long-range CNG buses that will ply these routes as the first stage of the green corridor. These buses have been designed by Ashok Leyland and are in the final stages of getting regulatory approvals. Once these approvals are received, the buses will undergo test runs for 45 days and then be declared fit for commercial operations,” ES Ranganathan, Managing Director of IGL, told BusinessLine .

“The buses can ply for 700 km in each refill and cost roughly Rs. 39 lakh each. This pilot project is expected to be launched in February next year. Eventually, there will be a CNG station at every 50 km on both sides of these green corridors,” he added.

Pradhan said that the service is being launched on a trial basis to prove commercial viability. After that, more such buses will be run on various routes. A senior official said the cylinders have been imported from Germany that are lighter, and enables the bus to run for up to 700 km in one fuel top up.

The existing ordinary CNG buses have five steel cylinders with a capacity of 100 kg fuel top up. The new buses will have seven fibre cylinders which can store up to 300 kg CNG. The existing ordinary bus cost is about Rs. 32 lakh, while the one with fibre cylinder would cost Rs. 39 lakh as each cylinder cost is Rs. 1 lakh per unit.

He also said that once the pilot is successful, the cylinders would be manufactured here as it would reduce the cost.

HBL