Gadkari Asks Bajaj To Replace Petrol With Ethanol In New CNG Bike

Bajaj Auto, today, launched the world’s first CNG motorcycle in India at Rs. 95,000 (ex-showroom). The bike is aimed squarely at the commuter segment and gets a 2-litre petrol tank and a 2kg CNG tank with an estimated overall range of 330 km. Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, was at the launch of the bike and applauded Bajaj’s efforts to make this CNG bike. However, he requested Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director, Bajaj Auto, to replace the petrol with ethanol. He said, “My only request to Rahul now is that in place of petrol, if you can make it the 2 litre tank of ethanol it will be really a great thing because petrol really is ₹120 per litre and ethanol is ₹60 per litre. Ethanol creates no pollution and petrol creates lot of pollution.”

This is not the first time that the Minister has brought up the topic of adoption of ethanol as a fuel with auto makers. In fact, he said in May this year that the government would think about a 2-3% lower tax than gasoline-powered vehicles for flex fuel vehicles, and 13-14% lower tax for flex fuel hybrids to compensate for their higher manufacturing costs.

Speaking about the availability of fuel, Gadkari said, “We have already opened 3 ethanol pumps in Pune and now Indian Oil has taken a decision under my guidance that they are going to start 400 ethanol pumps.”

In fact, he even said that Bajaj has taken the initiative to make a bike which runs on 100% bioethanol. That’s interesting and certainly we will dig out more information on it.