Credit: DH Photo
Bengaluru: The sales of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicles have increased by a whopping 144% in just about a year from 2022 to 2023 in Karnataka, according to the data from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH).
While there has been a steady increase in the use of electric vehicles as well, experts said that the CNG was gaining popularity, owing to the infrastructure push over the last few years.
For instance, Bengaluru had just 40 CNG stations in 2022, but they have increased to 107 by January 2023 and the number is said to go up to 150 over the next three months.
“Now, in every area, there is a CNG station and people are more confident. This has improved the sales as well,” a senior official from the Gas authority of India Limited (GAIL) said. GAIL is the authorised Compressed Gas Development (CGD) entity for
setting up CNG stations in Bengaluru.
Across Karnataka, there are close to 3,034 CNG stations and over Rs 4,300 crore of investment have been made in the sector. Officials from the Infrastructure Development Department said that the investments in the sector could go up to Rs 15,000 crore by 2030.
“As compared to Electric Vehicles, a huge investment has already been made in the CNG sector. Hence, it is easier to adopt,” a senior
official from the Infrastructure Development Department said.
In the recent State policy for the development of the CGD network, the department has also recommended that at least 40% of the new buses purchased by the state should be CNG-based.
Autos driving the
demand
Owing to the increase in demand, the market is also rapidly expanding to include new variants of CNG vehicles, the officials added. In Karnataka, CNG autos are said to be the most selling category of vehicles.
“If we look at the savings, an LPG-based auto will incur a cost of Rs 2.6 per km and CNG-based autos will run at Rs 1.62 per km and the drivers
can easily save up to Re 1 per km,” the GAIL official explained.
Followed by autos, are commercial taxis which are now slowly shifting from Diesel vehicles to the CNG vehicles. Lately, the CNG model has been preferred for many cargo goods vehicles as well.
CNG vehicles provide a green and clean alternative to petrol and diesel vehicles. They also offer close to 30% savings as compared to their counterparts.