No green light for Green buses yet

NMC’s plan to operate 55 green buses from November 15 may be delayed as centre has not yet included ethanol-run buses in the Central Motor Vehicle Rules. Regional transport officer (Nagpur city) Sharad Jichkar said the NMC has been advised to get approval from the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) and a certificate from a testing agency.
Municipal commissioner Shravan Hardikar was not available for comments.Transport committee chairman, Narendra Borkar, said that all necessary requirements of the RTO would be fulfilled. He claimed that to promote bio-fuel, MoRTH has already released the notification of mass emission standards for flex-fuel ethanol E85 and ED95. The ministry has notified the test requirements for type approval and extension for two, three and four-wheeled vehicles. Not only that, it has also notified the technical specifications of reference fuel E85 and ED95 used for testing of such vehicles.
To facilitate the use of alternative green fuels in vehicles, the ministry is amending rules under CMVR, 1989. The ministry has already notified draft rules for mass emission norms and testing standards of vehicles running on bio-CNG. The standards of small series testing of vehicles running on electric power have already been notified by the ministry. The transport department will also have to introduce tax structures for green fuel. Currently, it imposes tax on petrol, diesel and battery-operated vehicles.
Meanwhile, M/s Scania Commercial Vehicles India Pvt Ltd (SCVIPL) has submitted non-use application of its ethanol-run bus after its permit lapsed in August 2016. The bus is stranded at NMC’s octroi post at Khapri, said sources in the RTO.
Sources said the Scania bus permit expired on August 31 and has not been renewed. Sources also said that the office of Nagpur city RTO has not received any application from the NMC seeking renewal of the permit. The bus, which was running under a pilot project launched in Nagpur city for a year in August 2014, plied between RBI square and Khapri. The pilot project was very important to understand the technical feasibility and eco-friendly operation of the bus and ethanol fuel.
Sources said during the pilot project period in Nagpur city, Scania had obtained temporary permits six times to take the bus to different cities in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Baramati and to Make in India expo in Mumbai early this year.