VIJAYAWADA
A critical investigation has been launched into the incident of a city bus going up n flames in Vijayawada this week. Luckily, all 67 passengers managed to disembark to safety.
APSRTC officials, based on an ongoing probe by a technical team from Ashok Leyland from Chennai, say that leakage of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) might have caused the fire. The green fuel is gaining wide acceptance of late for its eco-friendly nature besides being economical.
Experts agree that one of the most common worries about CNG vehicles is with gas leak. Natural gas is a naturally occurring product made up primarily of methane. In its natural state, it is odourless but for practical purposes, it is odourised to enable easy detection in case of a leak.
It is said that an average person can detect odourised natural gas even at a very low concentration. For combustion to occur, the natural gas requires a concentration of at least 5%. However, bulk or continuous release of gas from the fuel system of the vehicle has the potential to cause fire.
“It looks like a gas leak case. The leakage would have started much before the bus reached the Government General Hospital where it stopped to allow two persons to board. The lady conductor saw smoke emanating from the rear left side of the vehicle after covering a distance of about 50 yards. The alert driver switched off the engine and asked people to get off the vehicle,” says an official from the mechanical wing of the Road Transport Corporation.
Regional Manager P.V. Rama Rao attributes the gas leak to increase in pressure.
That CNG buses are repeatedly catching fire is a matter of concern. Though the RTC officials claim that this is the first CNG-leak case, sources in the corporation indicate that the very next day of this mishap, another bus witnessed similar problem at Sitara Centre in Vidyadharapuram but it was controlled at the initial stage. Even in the past, an incident of gas leakage resulting in flames that were put off quickly did not come to public knowledge.
An official of the Bhagyanagar Gas Limited (BGL), the supplier of gas kits to the RTC, said CNG leakage unattended to by the RTC led to the fire. “Lack of proper maintenance could lead to leakage at the walls of the gas cylinders. Moisture can also lead to rust, thinning the walls of the cylinders,” he said.
Fund crunch
Poor maintenance of the fleet owing fund constraint is said to be yet another reason leading to such mishaps.
Leaders of the APSRTC Employees’ Union, who have been raising their pitch against the dismal scenario and trying to bring pressure on the State government to provide the much-needed succour to the ailing Corporation in order to help it tide over the serious financial crisis, warn that it would be too late if the authorities concerned do not take heed to their repeated pleas.
Unlike in the past when outdated vehicles were replaced with new buses, the corporation has been trying to ‘make adjustments’ by continuing to use the same vehicles after carrying out temporary repairs to them, said one of the leaders.