Nitin Gadkari, Road Transport & Highways Minister, said automakers should focus on retailing more electric and other green-fuel-powered vehicles. He also suggested that they play a role in encouraging use of public transport.
'You should concentrate on making luxury electric coaches powered by greener fuels as the problem of pollution is increasing. The cost of running a diesel bus is INR 115/km which can be brought down if we switch to greener fuels like electric,' said Gadkari at the 62nd SIAM annual convention in New Delhi on Thursday.
He asked manufacturers to work on ethanol, methanol and hydrogen as optional fuels for the future. Over 250 startups are already involved in making EVs.
According to him, India would never face any problem in throwing up clean solutions like flex-fuels using ethanol thanks to surplus output of sugarcane, wheat, rice and corn. Last fiscal saw production of 360 lakh tonnes of sugarcane against a requirement of only 250 lakh tonnes.
This surplus can be used to make ethanol, said Gadkari. 'Ethanol costs INR 62 per litre whereas petrol is INR 120/litre,” he said.
LNG and hydrogen are also other options and green hydrogen, in particular, can be generated from municipal waste across India. Gadkari had indicated at Wednesday’s ACMA convention that the goal was to offer hydrogen at just $1 per kg.
He said it was important to reduce imports and cited the example of the Zojila tunnel whose project cost has more than halved to INR 5,000 crore from INR 12,000 crore. 'We conducted a workshop with international consultants to reduce the cost of construction and I request SIAM to have similar workshops and reduce our dependence on imports,' he said.
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