City autorickshaws gear up for CNG conversion

Autorickshaws in Ahmedabad are gearing up to meet the extended deadline for conversion of public transport vehicles to cleaner fuels such as compressed natural gas (CNG).

The Supreme Court had extended the deadline for conversion of vehicles to cleaner fuels by three months to March 31. Two autorickshaws have already been powered with CNG in the city and by the end of this months over 30 such vehicles will be rolling in the city.

"There is a huge demand for CNG-powered autorickshaws. We have fitted CNG kits in two autorickshaws and have over a dozen vehicles lined up for CNG conversion by the end of this week," said Amit Karamchandani of Tez Motors on Tuesday.

Tez Motors is the only distributor of CNG kits in Ahmedabad, which procures the kits from the Pune-based Vanaz Engineers. A conversion kit costs around Rs 22,000 which can reduce fuel cost by 70 per cent compared to engines powered with petrol and diesel. An auto driver can recover the cost of the kit in the first 18 months of operation.

At an environment seminar held recently it was revealed that out of the 84,000 autorickshaws in Mumbai, 58,000 have already been converted to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or CNG. In Bangalore, about 50 per cent of the 60,000 autorickshaws have undergone fuel conversion. In Ahmedabad the demand is for CNG engines, while in Chennai drivers are going for the LPG route.

There are over 70,000 autorickshaws in the city and according to the Bhure Lal Committee, at least 5,000 autorickshaws need to be converted into CNG by March 31 next year. Going by the Adani Group's promise to the Bhure Lal Committee, so far only one CNG refulling station is operational at Geratpur, while the group is still in the process of setting up three CNG fuel stations at Jamalpur, Maninagar and Memco, which are expected to be operational by the end of this month.

The group is also planning to set five stations by March 2005, one each at Pandi, Vasna, Vadaj, Sarkhej-Gandhinagar Highway and Prahladnagar. However, plots for these stations are yet to be identified by the company.

The Bhure Lal Committee was formed by the Supreme Court to implement the conversion of power public transport system to CNG system.

The conversion move would also result in a rush at the Regional Transport Office for the bi-fuel transfer registration.

With the new directive, various companies in Gujarat are planning to take distributorship of CNG kit manufacturers, while a few companies such as Sagas, Minda and GMS in Surat already provide CNG kits.

"We expect to do a substantially good business of CNG conversion in the next three months. We do not have any competition with any other CNG kit distributor or company," said Karamchandani.