Government identifies 10 highway stretches for plying green hydrogen trucks

The government has identified 10 highway stretches in different parts of country for plying green hydrogen powered trucks with an aim to reduce vehicular pollution, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Tuesday.

Gadkari said these stretches will have hydrogen filing stations, set up by India Oil and Reliance Petroleum.

He further said that Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and Volvo have already started making hydrogen powered trucks.

The identified highway stretches include Greater Noida-Delhi-Agra, Bhubaneswar-Puri-Konark, Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Surat, Sahibabad-Faridabad-Delhi, Jamshedpur-Kalinganagar, Thiruvananthapuram-Kochi, and Jamnagar-Ahmedabad, among others.

The road transport and highways minister asserted that climate change is the biggest challenge faced by India.

He said India will have to improve its infrastructure to become a USD 5 trillion economy and third largest economy of the world.

Gadkari also noted that India has a potential to become largest exporter of the green hydrogen.

He said India's logistics cost will come down to single digit by December this year.

The minister said the most important achievement is that IIM Bangalore, IIT Chennai and IIT Kanpur conducted studies, and all three said that India's road logistics costs have reduced by 6 per cent.

Earlier, India's logistics cost stood at around 14-16 per cent, compared to 8 per cent in China and 12 per cent in the US and European Union.

He said the government's aim is to make India's automobile industry the number one in the world in the next five years.