Cummins Westport Inc. (CWI), a leading provider of high-performance alternative fuel engines for the global market, and Cummins India Ltd. (CIL) have announced that the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) has placed an order for 3,125 natural gas buses equipped with CWI’s B Gas Plus engines. The 230 hp B Gas Plus engines, powered by compressed natural gas (CNG), are licensed by CWI and manufactured by CIL.“We are delighted that DTC, already one of the world’s leading eco-friendly transit fleets, has selected CWI in their continuing contribution towards cleaning up the environment of the nation’s capital in India. This order of over 3,000 engines, our single largest to date, highlights both the quality of our products and our efforts to make our clean burning, natural gas engines available around the world,” said Guan Saw, CWI’s President. “Our natural gas engines provide significant benefits to consumers facing global concerns around energy security and high fuel prices. The economic benefits are equally matched by the positive environmental benefits by reducing harmful emissions such as particulate matter (PM) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx).”
“We are excited about providing dependable, fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly solutions in India. The B Gas Plus engine is a great example of this,” said Anant Talaulicar, CIL Chairman and Cummins Vice-President.
CIL, headquartered in Pune, is the country’s leading manufacturer of diesel and natural gas engines for power generation, industrial and automotive markets. It is also the largest among Cummins-affiliated companies in India.
According to NGVAmerica, the New Delhi Natural Gas Vehicle Program has halved air pollution over the last 10 years. Approximately 60,000 auto rickshaws in New Delhi were required to convert to CNG for fuel. A decade later, the Government issued a report hailing the success of the program, showing that, while the number of vehicles on the road has doubled, the pollution rate has come down significantly.
Outside of New Delhi, ten other major Indian cities also have aggressive natural gas vehicle conversion programs. As a result, the amount of petroleum used in the country has been cut substantially – a significant and cost-saving achievement for a country that has to import 70 per cent of its diesel and gasoline. DTC is one of the main public transport operators of Delhi and runs over 3,000 CNG buses on 773 routes throughout the city and the surrounding areas. Delhi operates one of the largest CNG bus fleets in the world. Air quality in the city has improved a lot after the Supreme Court order in 2002 made conversion of the city’s entire bus fleet to cleaner-burning CNG mandatory.
