BIZ-GADKARI-LD ALTERNATIVE FUELS

Union minister for transport Nitin

Gadkari Thursday stressed the importance of moving towards

the alternative fuels like methanol, ethanol and electric and

said that it will reduce the dependency on fossil fuels

costs less.

Gadkari was speaking at a symposium on 'empowering

mobility - the safe and intelligence way', organised by

Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI).

"Our crude oil import bill is of Rs 7 lakh crore and

this cost is creating big economic problems for the country

and at the same time, the use of fossil fuels are creating

pollution. As there is a lot of agriculture raw material

waste, there is a need to convert it into energy through waste

and move towards the alternative fuels like methanol, ethanol,

bio- fuels and electric," he said.

He added that the prime minister has already

declared that by 2022, we will have to reduce the import bill

of crude oil by 10 percent.

He said that his priority is for the agriculture. "We

are facing all the urban problems because we have neglected

the rural agriculture."

As urban population is bound to increase and it will

create alot of issue as cities like Pune, Mumbai, Chennai and

Delhi are already feeling the pinch.

"If bio mass projects are set up in the rural

areas, it will create a lot of employment and people will not

have to move towards the cities," he said.

He added that since all these raw material needed to

make the bio fuels are available in the rural areas, the

social economic scenario will also change.

He said that barring some states, the public

transport is facing losses.

"So we need to convert the public transport on to

electric or to ethanol," he said.

Gadkari said the government will soon provide 40 buses

that run on methanol for use in public transport in cities

like Guwahati, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Pune (10 each).

Considering that biofeuls can now be used in the

aviation sector, the minister said he plans to develop

Gadchiroli district in the Vidarbha region as a hub for

production of biofeuls since this district has required

natural resources for the same.

Prashanth Guru Srinivas, a member of core committee on

methanol in the Niti Aayog,said successful application of

methanol in automotive fuel will lead to 20 per cent reduction

in import of crude oil by 2030.