By IANS
Agra : Come January, the roads in Agra, the city of Taj Mahal, will witness commercial vehicles run only on compressed natural gas (CNG), considered environmentally “clean” alternative to diesel and petrol.
The Uttar Pradesh State Transport Authority Saturday issued a directive ordering that tempos, buses, auto-rickshaws and other public transport and commercial vehicles will have to switch over to CNG from Jan 1, 2008.
Although the decision to allow only CNG vehicles in Agra has been taken months ago, the implementation of the order had been stalled by various interest groups.
The state transport department has decided Agra, Kanpur and Lucknow will ban public transport vehicles using diesel in the first phase, an official of the UP State Road Transport Corporation said here.
The regional transport office in Agra has asked all schools to ensure that their buses switch over to CNG “otherwise they would be impounded”. A similar warning has also been issued to auto-rickshaw owners of the city.
“Most of autos have already switched to CNG, which is cheaper and cost effective in terms of maintenance,” said Hari, an auto-rickshaw driver at a CNG filling station in Transport Nagar in the city.
“Agra has three filling stations which are always crowded. Three more are coming up soon to ease the pressure,” an official of the Green Gas, a company that runs the CNG supply network in the city, told IANS.
Driver Ashok of Balkeshwar said he was particularly happy with CNG. “At first there was some resistance for the switch-over, as it involved additional expenditure. But once the switch-over was made, everyone is liking it because auto tariffs are based on petrol price, while CNG is available 50 percent cheaper.”
“Every one is making extra money,” he added.
An obvious positive change has been the reduction in the air pollution level on Agra roads, said activist Rajan Kishore.
“Earlier, it was so suffocating and choking at the Bhagwan Talkies crossing and at other busy intersections, but now you hardly feel the pollution,” said Kishore. He is happy that even government buses are now being run on gas.
“But something has to be done about trucks. Each day thousands of diesel-run trucks crisscross Agra and they neutralise all the good work others are doing. It is high time that trucks from the East and the South should be forced to bypass Agra altogether to save the historical buildings from air pollution,” Kishore added.