Bhubaneswar, March 15: From next year, the trouble of booking LPG cylinders will be over for twin cities residents with the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) deciding to deliver piped gas to their kitchens.
While making the announcement here today, director projects, GAIL, Ashutosh Karnatak and the company's chief executive officer P.K. Pal said consumers using piped gas would end up paying 30 per cent less than what they spend on LPG cylinders now.
Talking to reporters here today, Karnatak said: "A pilot project for the twin cities under the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga scheme will be completed by December 2018 and the full project will be ready by the end of 2019. Once the project comes up, gas will be cheaper by 30 per cent."
At present rate, a consumer pays Rs 767.50 for a non-subsidised LPG cylinder and Rs 453.57 for a subsidised one.
According to GAIL officials, around Rs 1,750 crore will be invested for the city gas distribution project in the twin cities. In Bhubaneswar alone, Rs 1,000 crore will be spent on the project.
Karnatak said: "In Khurda district, it will benefit around 25 lakh people and around 2.5 lakh households will be supplied domestic natural gas directly." In Cuttack, GAIL will spend Rs 750 crore on the project, which will benefit around 26 lakh people and reach 2.5 lakh households. To spread awareness about how natural gas will transform the lives of the people in the cities, GAIL today rolled out four mobile vans.
The officials said the direct gas project for the twin cities would address domestic and industrial needs. Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan will launch the project in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack on March 18.
As part of the project, 24 compressed natural gas (CNG stations) will also be commissioned in the first three to five years to supply environment friendly and economic fuel to around 1 lakh vehicles. In addition, CNG will be available to 50,000 vehicles through 20 CNG stations to be set up over the next three to five years.
The officials said that the pipe gas project would be extended to other cities across the state in a phased manner. This will include construction of a 762-km pipeline covering 13 districts. The Rs 4,000-crore project will cover the districts of Bhadrak, Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Angul, Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Deogarh, Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack, Khurda, Puri and Kendrapara.
The officials said that natural gas would be supplied to these cities through the Jagdishpur-Haldia-Bokaro-Dhamra natural gas pipeline, which is part of the 2,619km long Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga project.
The 2,619km long project, which stretches from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh to Haldia in Bengal, is being executed for Rs 12,940 crore. The project will pass through the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Bengal, covering 49 districts.
