MUMBAI: The Central government is continuing an aggressive pitch on getting around 400 districts and around 70 per cent of the population in the country covered under the city gas distribution (CGD) by the end of the tenth round of bidding for CGD projects. With this, the number of compressed natural gas (CNG) stations is expected to increase to 10,000.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who made a strong case for expanding the gas infrastructure and use of LPG as a commitment towards the Paris Climate Convention, laid foundation stone for the CGD network covering 129 districts on Thursday. He also launched the tenth round of bidding for CGD projects, coming close on the heels of the ninth round awards that were part of the projects he inaugurated.
Modi said that from 66 district districts under CGD coverage till 2014, the work has now expanded to 174 districts and in next two-to-three years, city gas would be available in over 400 districts.
The number of connections have also jumped from 24 lakh till 2014 to around 2 crore now.
The Ujjwala scheme of the government, partly also aimed at emission control, has so far given 6 crore free LPG cooking gas connections, taking the LPG coverage in the country to 90 per cent. “The domestic LPG coverage was 55 per cent four years ago. Only 13 crore connections were given in 60 years till 2014,” the PM said. He also spoke of the proposed gas trading exchange and the opening up of gas pipelines to a common carrier system. GAIL India has already announced the common carrier norms and started electronic access to pipelines.