India Begins Tryst With Green Long Distance Public Transport in Kerala

India will eagerly await the results from its first LNG-powered public transport system in the southern state of Kerala. If successful, India will replicate the experiment using long-haul commercial vehicles and the railways to cut down on carbon emissions.

New Delhi (Sputnik): India has started its first-ever public transport system fueled by LNG in the southern state of Kerala. The introduction of LNG in place of diesel is slated to power 6,000 public transport buses in Kerala will be copied to the entire road and rail transport system. This will not only curb carbon emissions, but save foreign exchange as well. India has started consultation with several countries including Russia, Iran and Qatar to source LNG at favorable terms. RasGas of Qatar has agreed to supply LNG at a renegotiated price of less than USD 5 per unit and talks are on with Russia’s Gazprom to alter the time frame during which India should increase its off-take to 2.5 million metric tons of LNG per a year.

"The Government of India has already announced that it is planning to use LNG, which is greener as well as more economical as compared to diesel," Indian Energy Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.

Along with Hon'ble CM of Kerala Flagged off India's first ever LNG fuelled bus for the test run today at Thiruvananthapuram. pic.twitter.com/MFv35Rol49

— Dharmendra Pradhan (@dpradhanbjp) November 8, 2016

India has prepared a blueprint for setting up LNG fueling stations along all major transport arteries. The increased demand will be met by an increase in imports and expansion of regasification capacity to 50 million metric tons per year from the current 21 million metric tons. Currently, many Indian cities are using CNG (compressed natural gas) as fuel in public transport, which is costlier than LNG because the conversion of imported liquid gas back into gaseous state adds costs.