Why CNG is still not the ‘fuel of choice’ for private vehicles?

Automotive sector has its eye set on India and the Indian consumers have proved to be worthy partners, setting up blazing consumption rates in all the vehicle segments. This is great for the world economy, but  a disappointing aspect for the environment – as majority of the Indian vehicles are still CNG incompatible. Any other country will be at pains to explain the lack of initiative in the CNG private sector considering the high price differential…

• CNG:  Rs. 31-32
• DIESEL: Rs. 41 – 45
• PETROL: Rs. 68 – 73

The chronic Indian syndromes continue to ail this extremely critical sector – Complete apathy of Sate and Central government combined with the perennial absence of CNG infrastructure. A testimony to this biased approach is the difference in the number of Petrol & Diesel Outlets and CNG dispensing outlets – Compared to 40,000 petrol & diesel outlets in the country, there are only 670 outlets for CNG.

CNG: The major roadblocks

The cleanest and greenest alternative fuel in the country is being sidelined while we continue to beg the external oil resources for costlier and dirtier fuels. Except for a few regions CNG is not even on the policy radar. Delhi, which had no other alternative except to embrace a cleaner way to commute has seen the effect of policy transformation. At present Delhi leads the CNG adoption in the country with 85 standalone CNG outlets in the country and with 179 OMC run CNG dispensing outlets. Other metros in a similar situation (collapsing City Lungs) are following in Delhi’s footsteps – Mumbai and Ahmadabad have shown genuine desire and urgency to go green. The other aspirants have come up with known and unknown hurdles associated with CNG adoption…

• Steep fall in natural gas production in the D6 block of the KG basin
• Increasing dependence on imported LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) ($11 – 16) – as an alternative to CNG ($4.2). At present LNG constitutes 18 – 20% of the overall mix
• Scarcity of land erecting CNG outlets
• Very few automakers are releasing CNG compatible models, citing immature infrastructure as the major reason for the lack of push in the CNG private vehicle sector. At present, the only vehicles with CNG models are coming from the Maruti stable – Zen Estilo, Wagon R,, Ecco, SX4 and Alto

Image Credit: firmgreen.com

CNG: A bit of history

The Indian journey of CNG started in 1991 – 92 as part of the pilot project. The decade following this witnessed a sporadic growth chart for CNG adoption. The major milestones along the way were..

• 1998: The Supreme court of India orders the first CNG program for India
• 1999 – 2004: This court order saw the implementation  largest ever CNG Program – putting more than 100,000 CNG vehicles on the road within a span of 5 years
• This period also benefited the environment with the largest ever public transport bus fleet on clean fuel – more than 10,000 CNG buses
• Large scale implementation of training and safety standards for CNG enabled vehicles
• Extension of CNG program to other polluted metros
• 2003: India joins IPHE (International Partnership for Hydrogen Economy)
• This membership spurred the Indian policy makers to accelerate the R&D for Hydrogen as fuel for automotive and stationary applications
• September, 2003: National Hydrogen Energy Board was created as a result of this association – this body creates the hydrogen road-map as well supports the funding

The road ahead…

The primary objective of the National Hydrogen Energy Board (NHEB) is to reduce India’s dependence on imported petroleum products. The following concrete milestones were established by the board…

1. 1 million vehicles running on Hydrogen based IC Engines and fuels by 2020
2. 1000 MW electricity generation using fuel cells by 2020
3. Allocating a budget of $5 billion to be spent for the whole program until 2020

These are worthy goals and has to be supported by the government and automakers. CNG is the fuel for the future – for the planet and posterity.