As part of the National Green Hydrogen Mission, the Government of India has initiated five pilot projects for using hydrogen in buses and trucks. Earlier MNRE had issued guidelines for implementing pilot projects in the transport sector under this mission.
Accordingly, the proposals were invited for different types of hydrogen-based vehicles, routes, and hydrogen refueling stations. After detailed scrutiny, the MNRE has sanctioned five pilot projects consisting of a total of 37 vehicles (buses and trucks), and 9 hydrogen refueling stations.
The vehicles that will be deployed for the trial include 15 hydrogen fuel cell-based vehicles and 22 hydrogen internal combustion engine-based vehicles. These vehicles will run on 10 different routes across the country viz., Greater Noida – Delhi – Agra, Bhubaneshwar – Konark – Puri, Ahmedabad – Vadodara – Surat, Sahibabad – Faridabad – Delhi, Pune – Mumbai, Jamshedpur – Kalinga Nagar, Thiruvananthapuram – Kochi, Kochi – Edappally, Jamnagar – Ahmedabad, and NH-16 Visakhapatnam – Bayyavaram. The above projects are awarded to major companies like TATA Motors Ltd, Reliance Industries Limited, NTPC, ANERT, Ashok Leyland, HPCL, BPCL, and IOCL.
The total financial support for selected projects made available will be around Rs. 208 crores from the Government of India. These pilot projects are likely to be commissioned in the next 18-24 months, paving the way to the scale up of such technologies in India.
