These states hold good potential for use of CNG as a fuel and ALL has taken a lead in developing the requisite technology for using the gas to drive commercial vehicles.

The co-ordination, explains executive director-marketing, Amol J Sandil, has been mainly in the technology and logistical aspects of gas distribution. ALL has provided inputs for designing the filling equipment including the nozzles, injectors etc based on its experience. ALL has so far clocked 1.5 million kg using CNG as a fuel both in Delhi and Mumbai. The company has used the learning curve to refine the technology and this expertise, especially those relating to fuelling, would be shared with the gas companies.

That apart, ALL would be helping the gas companies in arriving at the spacing of the filling stations taking into account the mileage a vehicle gets using CNG, in location of the mother station etc.

Sandil is very confident of the future use of CNG as a fuel. According to him, CNG offers a saving of close to a rupee per km at the current price of Rs 11.30 per litre compared to Rs 14.50 one has to pay for diesel. For a bus doing 250 km a day for 300 days in a year the savings work out to Rs 60,000 which is 20 per cent of the additional cost one pays for using a CNG engine. Thus, the additional cost incurred for investing in CNG can be recovered in five years without taking into account other benefits such as driver comfort, pollution etc.

This pay back period, according to him, will only reduce as diesel continues to be subsidised and there is every possibility of further hike in prices. Moreover, the sulphur content in the diesel presently is 0.25 per cent and this has to be progressively reduced to 0.05 per cent if Indian vehicles have to meet Euro III norms.

For this, investment to the tune of Rs 25,000 crore has to be made by the oil companies in de-sulphurisation plant if the sulphur level has to brought down to 0.05 per cent. The oil companies will have no choice but to recover this investment by way of higher diesel prices. On the other hand, CNG is presently been burnt and would make perfect sense to utilise it efficiently and will also save precious foreign exchange. This clearly reflects that CNG is the most viable, useful and appropriate alternate to diesel.

ALL is in the process of delivering 100 CNG chassis to Delhi Transport Corporation. ALL has geared itself to grab a large pie of the 10,000 buses which have been shifted to CNG in the capital alone in the near future. It has localised a significant part of its CNG kit and employees have been trained. The manufacturing plants located in Alwar, Rajasthan which will supply vehicle to Delhi and Gujarat while the Bhandara plant near Nagpur catering to Mumbai's requirement have been tuned to meet the projected demand.