Telangana: RTC to go green Electric, CNG buses set to run on roads soon

Hyderabad: The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) is converting diesel vehicles into CNG and electric vehicles, to reduce pollution. The Union Ministry of Roads, Transport & Highways, and the Association of State Road Transport Undertakings (ASRTU) have selected Hyderabad as one of the cities for conversion of diesel buses into electric buses, as a pilot. The Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT), Pune, has been awarded the project.

The TSRTC has made a detailed report of the steps that will be taken to reduce air pollution, and submitted it to the Secretary of Environment, Forests, Science, and Technology. Among these steps is the increased usage of green fuels such as CNG and biodiesel.

The use of biodiesel as a fuel was initiated in the year 2005, but it had to be discontinued due to issues in the supply. Those issues seem to have been resolved, and use of biodiesel is being resumed.

At present biodiesel used at 35 bus depots. It is planned that usage will be extended to 50 depots in the near future. The RTC in its report has said that the use of the biodiesel will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 8,885 tonnes per annum.

The RTC had also introduced the use of CNG buses, for the first time in south India, in 2011. The corporation had then planned to procure 250 CNG buses for Hyderabad; but procurement had to be limited to 134 buses, due to inadequate supply of CNG by the Bhagyanagar Gas Company.

The RTC now says that it has entered into an agreement with Bhagyanagar Gas, and has been assured of uninterrupted supply of CNG to power 300 buses in Hyderabad.

The corporation has requested the TS Pollution Control Board to provide financial aid in the form of a soft loan, for the procurement of 56 new CNG buses, and for the conversion of 26 diesel buses into CNG buses.

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Though the operation of CNG buses is not financially viable as compared to the operation of high-speed diesel oil buses, the corporation is willing to bear an additional cost of '25.39 lakh in the form of capital and operational costs, as part of its corporate social responsibility, to reduce air pollution. They say that they will introduce CNG buses without any financial assistance from the state government.

In its report, the RTC says that based on as assumption that each vehicle runs for an average of 250 km, the utilisation of 134 CNG buses will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by around 2111 tonnes per annum.

Bio Diesel used depots
Hyderabad & Secunderabad: 19
Mahabubnagar: 3
Nalgonda: 7
Rangareddy: 1
Warangal: 5

Electric buses

• RTC says that electrical buses utilise an upcoming technology whose widespread use will take some time.
• Hyderabad has been selected as one of the cities for conversion of diesel buses into electric buses, through the use of conversion kits.
• Under the project, TSRTC plans to convert 4 diesel buses into electric buses. The corporation says that it is phasing out vehicles that have completed over 15 years of life. These vehicles are being replaced with new ones that are compliant with the latest emission norms.