BENGALURU: With an increased number of people being fascinated with CNG-powered vehicles, that help reduce operational cost, many car owners, especially those in the travel industry, are opting to retrofit Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) kits. Users admitted that migrating from petrol and diesel to CNG has helped cut down operation costs by over 30 per cent, with CNG also providing good mileage at a low cost.
Gnanendra Kumar, Additional Commissioner of Transport, Government of Karnataka, said, “Registration of CNG-powered vehicles is increasing every year. However, we see a spike in the number of cars going to retrofit CNG kits.”
“The CNG kits which come in new vehicles are costlier than the retrofitted ones. That’s one of the reason fuelling the spike in retrofitting CNG kits. The cost for retrofitting CNG kits in a BS6 vehicle is around Rs 55,000, and in other variants it is much lesser,” Gnanendra Kumar said.
While there is no exact data available on the number of petrol and diesel vehicles that has opted for retrofitment, Kumar said that he has received request from cab operators like MERU. “We have got a request from MERU Taxi to retro fit all their cars that are providing airport services.
Likewise, there are many who are into travel industry who have opted for retrofitment. The operators said that by migrating to CNG their operation costs gets reduced by more than 30 per cent. There are many private car owners too who are shifting towards CNG to save money and also for the reason that it is less polluting compared to petrol and diesel,” he said.
Vehicle owners have to apply for retrofit, get CNG kits fitted from government approved retrofitting centres and then bring the vehicles for certification at the Regional Transport Office. Post vehicle inspection by our transport officials, it will be approved and the data uploaded on the Vahaan database, Kumar explained.
President of Karnataka State Travel Operators’ Association, Radha Krishna Holla said, “The trend of shifting to CNG retrofitting is high in tier 2 and tier 3 cities like Udupi, Gadag and other areas. The cost of CNG, when compared to diesel and petrol is very less and provides better mileage, which is thus pushing many to opt for this service.”