Poor CNG supply hits transport

Dec. 8: The perennial shortage of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in the city not only makes the lives of autorickshaw drivers miserable but also adds to the chaotic city traffic. Autorickshaws make long queues at the four filling stations in the city at Secunderabad, Nagole, Balapur and Abids causing terrible traffic congestion.
The drivers also park their vehicles in the queues overnight to fill their three-wheelers.
Though most of the autorickshaws plying on the city roads use CNG for various reasons like low emission of greenhouse gases and favourable price variance, the city has just four bunks equipped with the machinery to supply CNG.
Another problem with CNG is, only four-and-a-half Kg of CNG can be filled in an autorickshaw, which will give a mileage of upto 200 kilometres. “Every day we have to reach the filling station by 4 am in the morning and stay in the queue for hours together for our turn,” says Md Rafi, an auto driver of East Marredpally.
“If there is a traffic jam or the supplying lorry breaks down midway due to any mechanical failure, the queue stretches to over a kilometre,” says Prasad, manager of a petrol filling station at Secunderabad.
“When we ask the autorickshaw drivers to fill petrol instead of CNG and clear the road they say it is not viable,” says the Mahankali traffic inspector, Mr B. Srinivas Reddy.
The shop owners’ association at R.P. Road in Secunderabad even hired a watchman to clear off autos parked in front of their shops. “We are spending Rs 10,000 on a watchman to keep the autos away,” says a furniture shop owner adjacent to R.P Road petrol bunk.