By Hadiza Musa
The Federal Government has launched the Special Palliative Relief on University Transportation (SPROUT) programme to provide cheaper and more accessible transportation for students in universities across the country.
Louisa Afu, Manager, Investor Relations, who represented the Executive Chairman of PiCNG & EV, Barrister Ismaeel Ahmed, disclosed this on Thursday during an awareness programme at Bayero University, Kano.
She said transportation was an important part of university life and that high transport costs affected both students and staff.
“This is one of the reasons why Project SPROUT was developed, in alignment with Mr President’s mandate,” she said.
According to her, the programme would provide affordable transportation within and around participating universities through the establishment of CNG refuelling stations, vehicle conversion centres and the deployment of buses and tricycles in phases.
She said the first phase would cover 20 universities, with plans to expand the programme to other institutions across the country.
She also assured students that CNG was safe and encouraged them to embrace the new transportation option.
“CNG is safe, it is here to stay, it is cleaner, it is affordable, and it is sustainable,” Afu said.
She explained that the cylinders used for CNG conversions were specially designed for the purpose, saying they were different from ordinary gas cylinders.
She urged students to take advantage of the free CNG bus rides being provided as part of the awareness campaign and become ambassadors of the initiative.
Also speaking, the Dean of Student Affairs, Bayero University, Kano, Prof. Mukhtar Bunza, expressed appreciation to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the intervention.
Bunza said the initiative would improve students’ welfare by making transportation within the university and between campuses more affordable and accessible.
“We are really very happy and grateful to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for initiating this important intervention that is meant towards improving the welfare of the students,” he said.
He said BUK had previously benefited from government interventions aimed at improving transportation, including 20 electric tricycles provided through a TETFund intervention.
According to him, the university had also received interventions from PiCNG & EV, with the latest initiative further expanding affordable transportation options for students.
The programme is being implemented through a partnership between the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles (PiCNG & EV), FEMADEC Energy and MDGIF.