Recently, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari announced that the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has launched five pilot projects to deploy hydrogen-powered buses and trucks under the National Green Hydrogen Mission.

These pilot projects will involve a total of 37 vehicles - 15 powered by hydrogen fuel cells and 22 equipped with hydrogen internal combustion engines.

In addition, nine hydrogen refuelling stations will be established and tested along ten designated routes.

The selected routes are Greater Noida-Delhi-Agra, Bhubaneswar-Konark-Puri, Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Surat, Sahibabad-Faridabad-Delhi, Pune-Mumbai, Jamshedpur-Kalinga Nagar, Thiruvananthapuram-Kochi, Kochi-Edappally, Jamnagar-Ahmedabad, and NH-16 Visakhapatnam-Bayyavaram.

The projects have been awarded to leading organisations, including Tata Motors, Reliance Industries, NTPC, ANERT, Ashok Leyland, HPCL, BPCL, and IOCL.

The initiative is supported by a Government of India budget of Rs. 2.08 billion. All projects are expected to be commissioned within the next 18 to 24 months.

The objective of these pilot initiatives is to promote the development of commercially viable hydrogen-based technologies in the transport sector, with a particular focus on buses and trucks. The projects also aim to facilitate the establishment of essential infrastructure, such as hydrogen refuelling stations.

According to a statement issued by the Minister on a social media platform, "These pilot initiatives demonstrate the safe and efficient operation of hydrogen-powered vehicles, assess their technical performance, validate feasibility under real-world conditions, and evaluate economic viability - laying the foundation for future large-scale adoption."