UP boys invent eco-friendly bike

A bike that runs on CNG and gives a mileage of 80 km per kg may sound almost impossible, but four young boys in Rampur district have achieved the impossible. The cost of running the bike for 80 km comes to merely Rs 40. Four boys — Faisal Shah Khan, Sayed Monis Athar, Faraz Hasan Malik and Wasim Akhtar — who have completed their B.Tech from an engineering college in Greater Noida have come up with a prototype version of the CNG-run bike in a span of less than one year.

According to Faisal Shah Khan, “We were sitting casually and talking about pollution and inflation, when the idea of a CNG bike struck us. The purpose of developing such a bike was to make it environment friendly and provide a cheaper means of transport”.

The project was conceived in October 2014 and the bike’s prototype was finally rolled out in February 2015.

Explaining the modifications in the bike Faisal said, “All the modified equipment for the prototype motorbike was made in a local workshops under our guidance. The bike has a modified carburettor and a regulator to control gas intake.”

A 1 kg CNG cylinder is fitted in the bike and it runs on both petrol and gas. The overall cost incurred on modifying the bike was about Rs 10,000 and the second hand bike cost us Rs 42,000.”

Faraz Hasan Malik, another mastermind of the project and a resident of Bihar, said the whole project is self-financed and the money was contributed by all of them.

The four youth have gained appreciation from experts when they showcased their innovation at the national exhibition held at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi on December 4.

One of the four boys, Wasim Akhtar, is currently in Hyderabad to redesign the bike make through Computer Aided Design (Auto-CAD) software.

Syed Monis Athar said they were now working on sorting out safety concerns including placement of the gas tank. “We hope to get the bike on the road in the next one year,” he said.

The final make of the bike is expected to cost between Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000.

According to a study conducted by IIT Kanpur on pollution in Delhi, two-wheelers are causing more pollution in the city than cars and the modified bike, if it goes into commercial production, could take care of environmental concerns.