HYDERABAD: One hundred new buses of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation's Vidyadharapuram depot in the Vijayawada region will be run on compressed natural gas (CNG) once Bhagyanagar Gas Ltd (BGL) starts supply in October.

On Sunday, the APSRTC became the first transport utility in the South to use CNG for buses. An MoU was signed between the two entities by Chief Controller of Stores, APSRTC, C. Ranga Rao, and Director, Commercial, BGL, A. Viswanadha Sarma, in the presence of Transport Minister K. Lakshminarayana. BGL is a special purpose vehicle created by a joint venture between GAIL and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation.

Part of reforms

The Minister said the move to run CNG buses was part of the reforms aimed at improving services, reducing costs and making profits and at the same time being eco-friendly. BGL Managing Director C.N. Trivedi said allocation of 80,000 kg of CNG a day could fuel 1,000 buses. Starting with 100 buses in Vidyadharapuram depot, they would expand to cover Vijayawada, Guntur, Kakinada, and Hyderabad soon.

M.V. Krishna Rao, RTC Vice-Chairman and MD was present.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail