Nitin Gadkari says that green fuel has a great future
Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways of India inaugurated India’s first commercial LNG gas filling station in Nagpur on Sunday. He said that more usage of alternate fuels such as LNG, CNG, and ethanol would bring relief to people who are now agitated by the surging petrol prices. 
The use of ethanol as fuel could help save ₹ 20/litre despite its lower calorific value, added the Transport Minister.
A policy for flex-fuel engines is likely to be announced soon by the Road and Transport Ministry to incentivize automobile manufacturers to manufacture engines that would run on a mix of fuels.
The Minister added that tough competition could be given to the imported crude oil by increasing the usage of indigenous fuels like ethanol, bio-CNG, and methanol, providing the best price to consumers.
Gadkari further added that he had requested the central government to privatize the natural gas and petroleum sector. As a result, the Petroleum Ministry simplified the guidelines required for authorization for bulk and retail marketing of petrol and diesel in 2020. The reason behind this was to increase the private sector participation in the marketing of petrol and diesel.
Gadkari emphasized that green fuel has a great future in the country, with LNG becoming the most preferred fuel for long-haul transport in the world. “Now we have invited all private companies including PSUs in the field. Even you can import LNG,” he added.
“In our economy, we are spending ₹ 8 lakh crore for the import of petrol, diesel and petroleum products which is a big challenge… Being a nationalist I want that our imports should reduce and exports must increase.”
The Minister also showed data highlighting the economic advantage of LNG that the average cost of conversion of a conventional truck engine to an LNG engine was ₹ 10 lakh and trucks run around 98,000 km per year. Therefore after conversion, there will be savings of ₹ 11 lakh per vehicle in 9-10 months. “So the cost of conversion can be easily recovered,” he added.
