Gadkari emphasised that industry is already active in alternative fuels and biofuels, and he expressed confidence India can lead globally on cost and technology.
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday announced a major push for hydrogen in India’s transport sector, revealing that the government has begun pilot trials on ten routes across the country as part of efforts to scale alternative fuels.
Speaking at Prawaas 5.0 and the Bharat Prawaas Awards in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar, Gadkari said the pilots span long‑distance and regional corridors — from Greater Noida‑Delhi‑Agra to Pune‑Mumbai and coastal stretches in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh — and signalled the ministry’s conviction that hydrogen will be the fuel of the future for mobility.
Nitin Gadkari listed the 10 routes chosen for hydrogen trials:
- Greater Noida‑Delhi‑Agra
- Bhubaneswar‑Konark‑Puri
- Ahmedabad‑Vadodara‑Surat
- Sahibabad‑Faridabad‑Delhi
- Pune‑Mumbai
- Jamshedpur‑Kalinga Nagar
- Thiruvananthapuram‑Kochi
- Kochi‑Edappally
- Jamnagar‑Ahmedabad
- NH‑16 Visakhapatnam‑Bayyavaram
The trials will test hydrogen’s viability across diverse operational environments — urban corridors, coastal stretches and industrial belts — helping regulators and operators evaluate performance, refuelling logistics, safety protocols and cost dynamics for buses, trucks and other commercial vehicles.
“Our ministry is doing a pilot project on ten routes for hydrogen trials. I am sure the future of the transportation industry is hydrogen, and hydrogen is the fuel of the future, and we are working on that,” Nitin Gadkari said, framing the programme as a strategic experiment to identify scalable models for hydrogen deployment in India’s vast transport network.
📍 Gandhinagar, Gujarat
Addressed Prawaas 5.0 and the Bharat Prawaas Awards, organised by BOCI, in Gandhinagar today.
Safe, smart and sustainable mobility is the foundation of a developed India. Through innovation, clean mobility, policy reforms and integrated transport…
Policy push, industry readiness and technology
Gadkari emphasised that industry is already active in alternative fuels and biofuels, and he expressed confidence India can lead globally on cost and technology. He urged manufacturers and transporters to focus on producing buses and vehicles that combine world‑standard technology, passenger comfort and economic viability.
“The initiatives taken by the automobile industry in developing buses are very important, and manufacturers and transporters should think about having good, comfortable transport from a technological point of view with world‑standard technology,” he said.
STORY | Hydrogen future of transportation industry; trials underway on 10 routes in country: Gadkari
Hydrogen is the future of the transportation industry, and the government is conducting trials on 10 routes across the country on its use as fuel, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari…
The minister also welcomed falling battery costs and urged electric bus makers to pass savings to consumers, while stressing hydrogen’s potential to complement electrification — especially for long‑haul and heavy vehicles where energy density and refuelling speed matter. The pilots will allow assessment of hydrogen production routes (green hydrogen from renewables versus other methods), on‑route refuelling infrastructure needs, and lifecycle emissions to ensure environmental benefits.
Safety, road infrastructure and sectoral targets by Centre
Gadkari used the platform to reiterate road safety priorities, noting India records roughly 5 lakh accidents and 1.8 lakh deaths annually, with 66% of fatalities among 18–36‑year‑olds. He tied safety improvements to broader transport policy, arguing that safer, more reliable vehicles and modernised infrastructure will reduce the human and economic toll of accidents, which he estimated at around 3% of GDP. He also highlighted recent regulatory changes to streamline bus‑body approvals — cutting testing charges by 50% and reducing processing time from 16 weeks to six — measures designed to encourage quicker rollouts of safer buses.
Industry scale, ambition, infrastructure and next steps
Outlining the wider industrial context, Nitin Gadkari recalled that India’s automobile sector has grown from about Rs 14 lakh crore and the seventh global rank when he assumed office, to roughly Rs 22 lakh crore and third place today, creating some 4.5 crore jobs. He urged the industry to ramp up annual bus production — noting a current shortfall against the estimated requirement of 3 lakh buses per year, with domestic manufacturers producing only about 70,000–80,000 units. “We need to increase productivity three times more,” he said, stressing the need to scale manufacturing to meet public‑transport demands and to provide a market for new hydrogen and electric vehicle models.The ministry is pursuing complementary measures — reducing charging costs for electric vehicles, exploring green expressways to enhance transport efficiency, and backing private bus‑ports — while the hydrogen pilots will inform future policy on incentives, refuelling networks and standards. As the trials progress, stakeholders will watch closely for the technologies chosen (fuel cells versus hydrogen combustion engines), the sourcing of hydrogen (green versus grey/blue), the pace of infrastructure rollout, and the cost trajectory that will determine hydrogen’s competitiveness against diesel and battery electrification for different vehicle segments.
