Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

Naidu launches LPG kit for autos

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD NOV. 16. India's first LPG-conversion kit meant for autorickshaws, brought out as a marketable product by Hyderabad-based Shri Shakti LPG Limited, was launched here today by the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, who flagged off a few autos run on LPG.

The kit costs Rs. 12,000 per unit and if the Government gives sales tax exemption as sought by the Shakti Group chairman, D. V. Manohar, it comes down by Rs. 1,000.

There are about 80,000 autos in Hyderabad-Secunderabad and Shakti is capable of effecting the conversion, covering 15,000 of them per month.

The brief function was attended by a large number of autorickshaw owners, drivers and industrialists apart from Transport officials from the State Government.

A similar convoy was flagged off at Pune also simultaneously by B. Bhanod, Director, Automotive Research Association of India, which collaborated with Shakti for making the kit.

Mr. Chandrababu Naidu described the `innovative kit' as the benefit of his Government's bold decision according permission for such conversion despite resistance from the Union Government.

He said development would have no meaning without health and health promotion, in turn, required pollution-free and environment-friendly atmosphere.

In view of this, the Chief Minister announced his decision to allow all type of vehicles, including buses and two-wheelers, to go for conversion as a policy and encourage compressed natural gas (CNG) also, both as fuel for vehicles and as cooking medium.

Natural gas was abundantly available in the KG Basin of the State. To start with, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada could emulate Hyderabad.

As conversion kits were made available now only for two-stroke engines of autos Mr. Naidu appealed to owners of these three-wheelers to go in a big way for conversion and make the city clean and green.

The Chief Minister spoke of his dream to make Hyderabad a `transit halt' between Europe and China, and unveiled plans to convert it into a `destination point' with 200-km ring road connecting the upcoming international airport.

Hyderabad secured the `clean city' award for the fourth consecutive year, he said, hoping that it would become the cleanest city in eight years as rightly pointed out by National Geographic Society.

Mr. Naidu said that 85 per cent of pollution in Twin Cities came out of vehicular smoke with the yearly quantity being 2.3 lakh tonnes.

Giving an update of the conversion technology, Mr. Manohar announced that his company had also made kits for two-wheelers and they would be launched into the market shortly.

He wanted the Chief Minister to help implement full-scale conversion by asking the SC/ST and BC Finance Corporations of the Government and similar agencies to fund the programme.

Responding, the Chief Minister promised to hold a State-level bankers' meeting for this and sound the aforesaid finance corporations also to do the needful.

He said Shakti was also tying up with PSU oil companies like HPCL, BPCL and IOCL for marketing the kits allover the country through their retail network.

As of now, there were 25 auto LPG dispensing stations spread over Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Pune.

The kits would be launched in all these cities.

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