‘Green’ cars grind to a halt in CNG-starved Hyderabad
If you are planning to buy a new car fitted with a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) cylinder thinking that it will help you save fuel cost, then think again. Hyderabad has only 12 CNG stations and most of them are running dry, thanks to poor supply of piped natural gas to the city.
R Madhu, a resident of Marredpally, is one such car-owner who is now regretting fitting a CNG cylinder to his new Chevrolet Beat. “I was hoping to do a world of good for the environment, and was taken in by people who said the city has enough pumps. I have now realised these are far and few, so I’m now forced to fall back on petrol,” he said.
Ratul Roy, a Mumbai-based businessman, who was in the city for the weekend, had to actually drive his CNG-enabled SX4 Maruti car back to Mumbai on petrol. “I could have saved a lot of fuel, but was surprised not to find a CNG pump in Hyderabad,” he told TOI.
In a city like Hyderabad where 500 new vehicles are added to the streets everyday – and some fitted with CNG cylinders – there are not enough pumps supplying compressed gas, while the existing ones see serpentine queues of autorickshaws.
“When there are so many people who are eager to take to CNG due to fuel efficiency and the monetary benefits, the shortage of fuel pumps is a big setback. On an average day, we have to wait for at least an hour in long queues to fuel my car,” said D Clement, owner of a new Honda Amaze in Sainikpuri.
It’s not just motorists who are feeling the crunch, even car manufacturers are ruing the lack of takers for CNG variants.
CNG car sales show a decline
“When we had launched the CNG variant car, there were several bookings. But once customers learnt of the CNG pump crisis, they changed their mind. In the last three months we have hardly sold four CNG-run cars,” said a senior sales representative of Honda. Last year, Maruti sold atleast four CNG cars every month, but now it can barely sell one. A Maruti spokesman said that banking on CNG variants has been a “bad experience” and it had an impact on sales of other alternate fuel variants as well.
“I feel I made a mistake by opting for a CNG car. It is a pain for us to fill up the cylinder. Either there is no stock or a huge queue before us,” said K Vittal, a resident of L B Nagar.
According to the Bhagyanagar Gas Limited, there are 16 CNG-equipped pumps in the city, but unfortunately two of them shut down recently and there is no guarantee of round-the-clock gas in the remaining ones. While there have been announcements regarding the increase in the number of stations to 20, the haphazard supply mode has ensured putting off the plan. The government attributes the reason to the flimsy modes of CNG availability.
Sources say that the daily demand is more than 50,000 kg, but the BGL has been supplying only about 30,000 kg daily to the stations. “There is a problem when it comes to the supply of CNG to the city — which is why the number of pumps has remained few,” said C H Srinivas, a senior official of HPCL. “This problem will only be resolved once the piped natural gas plan takes off in Hyderabad and we have been given an assurance by BGL,” he added.