India’s'first' biodiesel bus struggling to get fuel

A corporation which pioneers environmentally friendly transport in India is struggling to find biodiesel for its buses, according to the Bangalore Mirror.

The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) was the first in India to introduce buses which run 100% on biofuel. KSRTC has a fleet of 26 luxury buses which run on 100% biodiesel, and 1500 buses which are operated on 20% blended biodiesel.

Hundreds of thousands of litres of biodiesel are required to keep KSRTC’s fleet running, yet it has been struggling to procure this amount since its supplier stopped producing biodiesel in December.

The shortage in supply has restricted KSRTC to operating only one AC bus between Bengaluru and Chennai.

A KSRTC official told the Bangalore Mirror that the corporation had floated another tender to procure biodiesel, which will be “finalised in a few days”.

The official also said that facilities were in place at 17 depots in Bangalore to store and blend biodiesel.