Govt, and industry commence work on minimising emissions from freight movement

To boost & strengthen the rapidly expanding freight transport ecosystem to zero-emission movement, the WEF (World Economic Forum) announced the setting up of a zero-emission road freight cluster, earlier this year. This would be the first such cluster in the country supported by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and the NITI Aayog. The freight corridor will deploy over 550 zero-emission trucks in select road corridors across Gujarat and Maharashtra.

According to the WEF report, another alternative to lower emissions is by adopting zero-emission trucks (trucks operating on battery or other alternative fuels) which can lead to 2.8–3.8 gigatons of cumulative carbon savings by 2050.

India has chosen Gujarat and Maharashtra state due to their large share in the country’s freight movement via road. These two states handle over 50% of India’s total cargo volume. India is also inducted into the “e-fast India” scheme to assist zero-emission road freight solutions across India using sustainable technologies.

Even though India is making all efforts to participate in the zero-emission freight corridor and bring down overall road transport emissions, it would certainly be a slow crawl to the finish line. Experts say that among the top EVs available in India, it can carry less than one ton of weight and have a range of 100 km that can be managed with a single charge.

The government is trying to overcome all issues, and one of them is to install solar panels along the highways to enable a ‘green’ electricity supply to the charging stations coming along this corridor. It’s the right direction but it will be a few years before a complete zero-emission corridor becomes a commercial reality. On top of it, all the diesel vehicles have to be converted to CNG and small vehicles have to be converted to EVs.