Nagpur : Running behind its schedule, first Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) bus will arrive at Nagpur next week. The civic body is switching over city buses to environment-friendly fuel CNG.
The Transport Department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has decided to run its 50 high speed diesel (HSD) buses on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). The civic body had received these diesel-buses under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) from the Central Government. According to sources, Travel Time company has agreed to switch over diesel buses by fitting CNG kits. The company will invest in installing CNG kit- Type III CNG Cylinder in the buses without charging a penny from the Transport Department. The cost of a kit is around Rs 3.50 lakh.
As per earlier schedule, these buses will be arrived by January 26 but due to some technical problems, the first bus will be coming to Nagpur from Mumbai. The CNG kit has been fitted in the city bus at Dahisar area in Mumbai. Also, the company will start a CNG filling station at Khapri over civic body’s land. Current rate of 1 kg CNG is around Rs 50 but the company will charge Rs 55 from the civic body to recover the CNG kit cost.
It will also sell CNG to other buses and profit earned will be shared on 50:50 per cent ratio. These buses will reduce financial burden on NMC as CNG will be available at Rs 55 per kg while current price of diesel is Rs 75 per litre.
At present, the buses are running up to 3 km on 1 litre diesel while they will run up to 4.5 kms on 1 kg CNG. Also, switching over to CNG as fuel for city buses will reduce pollution.
Transport Department has suggested to convert 50 buses to CNG out of 79 diesel buses provided to operator Travel Time. Total 237 such buses are plying on city roads.
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