Ride CNG bike to college in Maharashtra, get more marks
The marks will be credited at the time of admission to vocational courses, depending on their usage of green gases, the minister announced on Sunday, while launching CNG-fuelled two wheelers at BKC. Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL) in association with Eco Fuel (Indian Partners of Lovato, Italy) launched the two-wheelers
Two-wheelers account for the highest — about one-third (28.8%) — of the total road accident share in India. But despite this, sports and youth welfare and education minister Vinod Tawde has announced crediting more marks to college students using compressed natural gas- (CNG) enabled two- and four-wheelers.
The marks will be credited at the time of admission to vocational courses, depending on their usage of green gases, the minister announced on Sunday, while launching CNG-fuelled two wheelers at BKC. Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL) in association with Eco Fuel (Indian Partners of Lovato, Italy) launched the two-wheelers.
While speaking at the launch Tawde said, “Like carbon credits, we will credit the marks to students, which can be used for exams or it will be accounted for during admission to any vocational courses. This way, more students will use green gases. We will try to ensure students in all major cities in Maharashtra use CNG-enabled two-wheelers to go to college. Such students will be considered environment saviours.”
For thousands of students in city, this could be an easier way to garner some extra marks by retrofitting their two-wheelers at a cost of Rs15, 000.
However, activists criticised the government move of dolling out marks for using CNG-enabled two-wheelers.
“It is a wrong precedent to set because it will encourage more youngsters to use two-wheelers, which is the biggest contributor to road accidents and traffic congestion. The 54.1% cent of all persons killed in road accidents in 2015 are in the age group of 15-34 years. If the government wants to promote green gases, they should encourage students to take public transport and cycles,” Rishi Agarwal, transport expert, said.
Dinesh Panjawani, principal, National College, Bandra, said, “The marks can be given to students to conduct awareness campaigns for eco-friendly fuels or measures to bring down green-house gases. This can be observed or rated, but marks cannot be given to them for using CNG-enabled two-wheelers. What are the ways to find out who owns it or what if student doesn’t own the vehicle?”
Read more: NGT tells neighbouring states to switch over to CNG or face action
