CNG sale begins in Agra

Three months after it formally launched CNG for automobile project in Agra, the GAIL"�IOCL joint venture, Green Gas Ltd, has completed the construction of the first CNG mother station in the town that began dispensing CNG to automobiles on Monday.

According to J K Singh Tevatia, managing director, Green Gas Ltd, the pump, that had been established with the cost of Rs 5.5 crore had remained in pipeline for long due to the unavailability of land for the pump construction, before it could be finally setup.

He said the company had fixed the CNG prices in Agra at Rs 26 per Kg which, though much more expensive than what the gas costs in Delhi, was still a cheaper alternative to petrol as a fuel as was evident from the increase in the fuel economy of the auto rickshaws that were making 39 km per Kg of CNG against the 19 km average on petrol.

On the first day, he said, the pump that had been setup at the Inter State Bus Terminal in Agra, served gas to only seven auto rickshaws as there were almost negligible number of CNG vehicles in the town. But it has a filling capacity of 12,000 Kg per day that was capable of filling at least 100 buses and 1,000 auto rickshaws or cars in a day.

He said the pump was currently running on trial basis and it would be formally inaugurated in the last week of April. Being located at ISBT also made this pump accessible to the buses and taxis arriving in Agra from Delhi and the construction of the remaining pumps in Agra shall be completed soon to make CNG easily available all over the town.

With CNG finally becoming available in Agra, the automobile dealers of the town have begun placing orders for CNG buses and other automobiles, expecting a big boom in their demand in the coming few months.

The auto-parts markets in the Boileu Ganj and Transport Nagar areas of Agra have begun selling both indigenous and "imported" CNG conversion kits for older petrol & diesel vehicles.