Hydrogen future of transportation industry, trials underway on 10 routes in country: Gadkari

Gandhinagar, Jul 9 (PTI) Asserting that hydrogen is the future of the transportation industry, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said the government is conducting trials on 10 routes across the country on its use as fuel. The trials are underway on Greater Noida-Delhi-Agra, Bhubaneshwar-Konark-Puri, Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Surat, Sahibabad-Faridabad-Delhi, Pune-Mumbai, Jamshedpur-Kalinga Nagar, Thiruvananthapuram-Kochi, Kochi-Edappally, Jamnagar-Ahmedabad, and NH-16 Visakhapatnam-Bayyavaram routes, the minister said. The Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways was addressing a gathering at Prawaas 5.0 and Bharat Prawaas Awards event here. "Our ministry is doing a pilot project on ten routes for hydrogen trials. I am sure the future of the transportation industry is hydrogen, and hydrogen is the fuel in the future, and we are working on that," he said. The industry is working very well in the area of alternative fuel and biofuel, and India will lead globally with its technology and cost, Gadkari added. "The initiatives taken by the automobile industry in developing buses are very important, and manufacturers and transporters should think about having good, comfortable transport from the technology point of view with world-standard technology. The duty of our manufacturers is to give more comfort with reasonable economic value," he added. Safe transport is another important thing, Gadkari said while pointing out that the country witnesses 5 lakh accidents and 1.80 lakh deaths every year, with 66 per cent of those dying belonging to 18-36 age group. "It (accidents) also causes 3 per cent GDP loss. So we need your help in preventing these accidents. Therefore, road safety is the highest priority for the government...Our industry is doing an excellent job from the safety and technology point of view. And that is the reason that our two-wheeler manufacturers in India are able to sell 50 per cent of products abroad," he said. He said that from Rs 14 lakh crore and 7th rank globally when he took over, the automobile industry of the country is today 3rd in the world with the size growing to Rs 22 lakh crore. "Our ambition is to reach the first spot soon. This industry gives the highest revenue to the state and central governments, and has created 4.5 crore jobs. We have naturally made many improvements in automobile engineering, and the industry has cooperated with us," Gadkari said. Gadkari also urged the industry to meet the target of the number of buses needed to be manufactured annually in the country. The problem in India is that against the requirement of three lakh buses, our manufactures are able to achieve the target of only 70-80,000. We need to increase productivity three-times more," he said. He also urged electric bus manufacturers to pass on the benefit of reduced lithium-ion battery cost to the consumers. He said the cost of power for charging at Rs 20 is high and his ministry is working to reduce it for buses, trucks and cars. The revised bus body code was introduced in September last year to make buses safer, and his ministry has decided to ease the procedures for the bus body manufacturers -- which constitute 600 plus units and 75,000 employees -- by reducing testing charges by 50 per cent and processing the timeline from 16 weeks to 6 weeks, he said. His ministry is also working on constructing private busports, he said. Green express highways will reduce travel time and help increase the turnover and profit for transportation industry, he added. PTI PD BNM