Bhubaneswar: A pilot project to supply piped natural gas in the city will be launched at Nalco Nagar on Friday.

The colony of public sector employees, at Jayadev Vihar, has 255 households. A special filling depot has been built in the colony to provide gas round the clock. Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan will launch the Rs 5-crore project.

Piped gas costs 30 per cent less than LPG cylinders.

GAIL is bringing liquefied gas in special containers called "cascades" to Nalco Nagar. The liquefied gas will then be converted to gas and supplied to the residents through pipes.

"Later, natural gas will be supplied through Jagdishpur, Haldia, Bokaro and Dhamra," said GAIL director-projects Ashutosh Karanatak.

He said: "GAIL plans to provide piped natural gas connections in the near future to adjacent Jeevan Bima Colony and Maitri Vihar Colony covering 1,000 houses."

Karanatak said: "We wish to launch piped gas on a pilot basis in Cuttack city by March next year. By December 2019, we hope to provide 25,000 gas connections each to Bhubaneswar and Cuttack."