Bangalore unconvinced on need for CNG buses
GAIL is growing frustrated with Bangalore's transportation authority because the city is home to more than eight million people but does not have a single CNG-fueled public transport bus.
But (Ms) G Sathyavathi, managing director of state-owned Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), tells this report that CNG-fueled public transport buses are commercially unviable. "We have examined this issue from the point of viability and cost-benefit analysis and don't see value in CNG buses," she said.
"Especially when CNG and diesel cost almost the same." Instead, the BMTC is hiring electric buses to reduce pollution levels.
Sathyavathi said diesel is more readily available than CNG. "We had a meeting with GAIL recently," she added.
"They said we should retrofit our buses (with CNG kits), and they will share in the cost. Why should we do this? I told them, you do this; even the electric buses we have now and plan to have are on lease; we don't incur any expenditure on maintenance."
GAIL Gas received the Bangalore CGD licence in February 2015 and spent Rs17cr ($2.4m) to set up CNG filling stations at the BMTC bus depots of Peenya, Sumanahalli and Hennur, expecting BMTC to roll out 200 CNG-fuelled buses. "None of these filling stations is being used," complains a GAIL source.
"We have now asked the BMTC to allow the public to use the stations to fill their vehicles with CNG." GAIL says it has had many unsuccessful meetings with BMTC over the years to get them to convert diesel buses to CNG.
"At every meeting, the BMTC has a list of queries and objections," we hear. "At the next meeting, we give answers only to be presented with another list of queries; this has been going on for years; a thick file of objections has built up against our proposal, unlikely ever to be approved without directions from the government of India."
GAIL is surprised the BMTC is reluctant to operate CNG buses when private cars, buses, and autorickshaws use CNG. Some industry sources allege a "strong diesel pilferage lobby" within the BMTC and Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation is preventing CNG uptake.
"Karnataka doesn't have a single public transport CNG bus," we hear. "Unlike diesel, gas cannot be pilfered or adulterated, so CNG is not lucrative!"