Mounting vehicular pollution in Bengaluru has intensified demands to accelerate the ‘electric’ switch to green mobility. But the costly transition has been slow and unsteady. Why has the relatively cheaper Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) failed to take off as an alternative, fuelling both BMTC buses and private, personal vehicles?
Consider this: By 2018, the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) had set up three CNG stations inside the BMTC depots in Hennur, Sumanahalli and Peenya. But they were never used since the transport corporation did not acquire any bus fuelled by CNG. The costly retrofitting of existing buses was out of question.
A GAIL India spokesperson informs that currently, over 35,000 CNG-run vehicles are registered in Bengaluru. These include autorickshaws, cars, light and heavy commercial vehicles. This figure stood at 8,000 in October 2021. Yet, the numbers are only a fraction of the city’s total vehicular population estimated to be well over 1.03 crore.
