The Centre for Science and Environment is shocked at the way the Union petroleum minister Ram Naik is out to sabotage the Supreme Court's orders on CNG by raising false fears and more uncertainty in the mind of the public.

NEW DELHI, AUGUST 9, 2001: Just as the deadline for converting all public passenger transport to CNG by September 30, 2001, is coming closer, for once everyone else is turning around to implement the Supreme Court order, but the Union minister for petroleum and natural gas, Ram Naik, in charge of gas supply in the country, is not interested in dealing with long queues for CNG by augmenting its supply. He is on the contrary busy creating more uncertainties and the brunt of the confusion is being borne by CNG users in Delhi. There have been flurry of statements by Mr Naik to the media raising several problems and projecting them as insurmountable. He has made misleading claims that there is not enough gas to meet the transport requirements in Delhi, that the entire city's fleet will come to a halt if the gas pipeline bursts or is under repair, and that CNG prices will shoot up once the administrative price mechanism is dismantled.

Anil Agarwal, chairperson, Centre for Science and Environment, while addressing a press conference in the Capital today took a serious note of the devious designs of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas and strongly condemned this misinformation campaign, "It is shocking that even after more than three years since the Supreme Court issued orders on CNG conversion, the petroleum minister claims that very little gas is available for the city's transport fleet. This is totally contrary to the information that the Indraprastha Gas Ltd. (IGL) has regularly provided to the Supreme Court. It is an excellent disinformation exercise. All our investigations have found that each of these fears is either unfounded or can be dealt with," says Agarwal.

Clearly, Naik is desperate to cover his ministry's tracks and is still hoping to get Euro II diesel classified as clean fuel, and then do nothing extra than what is already available in the market.

None of his claims on shortage of CNG, possible increase in CNG prices, and reasons for long queues stand careful scrutiny. There is no shortage of gas. It is merely a question of allocating enough gas to meet the transport needs of Delhi on a priority basis that needs a mere 1.13 million cubic meter (mcum) of gas out of the HBJ pipeline's capacity of 33.4 mcum. Ironically, even as public transport is starving of gas, piped gas is being supplied to hotels and affluent households where substituting LPG with natural gas will not make any difference to air pollution levels. The Gas Linkage Committee (GLC), an inter-ministerial committee responsible for allocating gas to different sectors attaches more importance to the fertiliser and power sectors in the national economy. There are many precedents now that show that big industry groups like

Reliance, Essar, and so on, have been granted more gas on request. But arranging for a higher allocating of gas for the transport sector in the interest of public health appears to be very low priority for the ministry.

The petroleum ministry has not only failed to meet the target of setting up all the 80 CNG stations mandated by the Supreme Court, it has also slipped up in meeting its commitment to convert all the daughter stations to `daughter-booster' stations by August, 2001, to maintain uniform pressure at these filling stations to lower the filling time. The long queues in the Capital are a testimony to this.

Moreover, Naik's bid to raise prices ostensibly on account of large investments and losses incurred by the IGL defies logic. This is hard to believe given the very high level of demand for CNG, over 100 per cent utilisation of its installed dispensing capacity, and the fact that there is no subsidy on it. The Annual Report of the IGL shows that the company has been making a profit since its inception. It had a net profit of Rs. 40.5 lakh in 1999-2000 and Rs. 1.8 crore in 2000-2001. Naturally, when Naik wags the CNG cost tag he does not link it with the countervailing health costs of air pollution, conservatively estimated by the World Bank at Rs. 1,000 crore per annum in Delhi.

Why is Naik crying foul when under the aegis of his own ministry massive expansion plans for gas pipelines have advanced considerably? While any possibility of disruption in supply of gas is very remote, it is still possible to store gas in several other ways, but the ministry has paid no attention to developing such contingency plans.

Instead of creating more confusion Naik should be serious about improving gas supply in the Capital and not bedevil the effort of the Supreme Court to clean up the city's air, said Agarwal.

Agarwal also expressed his dissatisfaction over the official disdain towards putting in place comprehensive safety regulations for CNG. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways claims that all rules and regulations on safety and emissions are in place but very few know that these rules are inadequate. This was exposed when CSE sponsored an independent assessment of CNG technology and both safety and emission standards with the help of three international experts with wide experience in CNG technology. Based on their finding the three experts, Christopher Weaver, President, Engine, Fuel, and Emissions Engineering, Inc., USA, Lennart Erlandsson of Motor Testing Centre, Sweden, and Frank Dursbeck formerly with TUV Rheinland Sicherheit Und Umweltschutz GMBH, Germany, have concluded that "In an international perspective, we consider the safety level of the buses to be acceptable. However, there are still items or manufacturing operations that could be further improved in order to minimise the risk of unwanted incidents."