As per the State of Global Air Report 2022, which released last month, India is home to 18 of the 20 cities with the most severe air pollution levels. The report further reveals that it is not just big cities like Delhi, Kolkata but small cities like Etawah, Rewa as well that are breathing unhealthy levels of pollution. Even though air pollutants come from various sources, vehicular emissions are one of the significant contributors. In order to curb the rising air pollution levels, India is taking significant steps to promote alternative low carbon fuels that are cleaner for transportation. One such important step is using green fuel Bio-CNG for transportation.

In February 2022, Indore announced to run its 400 city buses on Bio-CNG generated from the newly inaugurated Devguradia waste plant. The buses that are currently running on diesel, would be converted to operate on Bio-CNG in a phased manner. In its full capacity the plant is expected to process 550 tonnes of organic solid municipal waste per day to produce 17,000 kg of bio-CNG and 100 tonnes of organic compost.

Around 75 major municipal governments are expected to get such Bio-CNG plants over the next two years that would help make Indian cities pollution-free and move towards clean energy. Considering that tonnes of solid waste has been piled up at land masses across cities, this is an important step forward. However, according to solid waste management experts its success is not guaranteed because in order to yield the desired outcomes, waste segregation at source is a must. The success rate of biogas technologies based on municipal solid waste has been poor since the waste is not segregated into organic and inorganic parts at source. But, in case of Indore, this might not be a problem as the Municipal Corporation has ensured 100% household-waste segregation since 2016. Research suggests that India has a big scope for Bio-CNG and can replace 4,000 tonnes of country's diesel consumption per day, if harnessed correctly.

Do you think your city bus can run on Bio-CNG?

To know more about Indore's efforts, read.