KOCHI: The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) organised a roadshow in Kochi on Monday to initiate the City Gas Distribution (CGD) bidding round for distribution of piped natural gas in seven north Kerala districts. With the extension of CGD to Kozhikode, Wayanad, Malappuram, Kannur, Kasargod, Palakkad and Thrissur, around 63 per cent of the state’s population will get access to natural gas. Pipeline laying works for the CGD is in progress in Ernakulam district.
Currently there are 91 CGD networks in India covering 19 per cent of the country’s population.
The PNGRB has initiated the ninth bidding round offering 86 geographical areas covering 174 districts covering 29 per cent of the population, PNGRB chairperson D K Sarraf told media persons here on Monday. The current City Gas Distribution networks sell around 25 million metric standard cubic metre gas per day. After the award of new networks, gas distribution will cover 49 per cent of the country’s population, he said.
“The bid submission will end on July 10 and the areas will be awarded by October. We have identified 14 industrial units and 15 more will be covered by March 2019,” said Sarraf.“The state government has been very proactive and the Chief Minister has nominated the Chief Secretary as the nodal officer for the project.
The LNG terminal in Kochi has the capacity to meet the demand in the seven north Kerala districts. GAIL has assured that the laying of pipeline to North Kerala will be completed by the end of 2018. This will provide the infrastructure for distribution of LNG in these areas. For south Kerala, we need to have a 250 km pipeline. Once the pipeline is ready we will initiate steps for bidding,” he said.
The Centre expects an investment of Rs 70,000 crore through the ninth round of bidding.
The companies bidding for the networks will get the right to distribute LNG in a particular area and have to develop infrastructure for distribution of gas including laying of pipeline.
He said the decision to promote LNG will not affect other energy sources like LPG, petrol and diesel. The per capita energy consumption in India accounts to only one-third of the world average. The energy requirement in the country will increase in future we can’t depend on a single source of energy to meet our needs. We need to tap all energy resources, he said.
City Gas co to re-carpet roads dug up for pipeline
On complaints regarding the delay in re-carpeting the roads dug up for laying pipeline, Indian Oil-Adani Gas Pvt Ltd asset head Ajay Pillai said the company will re-carpet the roads after laying pipeline. “There were two Government Orders (GO)regarding the digging up of roads.
As per the first order the company had to pay in advance for re-carpeting the roads. We have paid the amount fixed by the government for restoration of the roads dug up in Kalamassery and Tripunithura. The second GO has put a pre-condition the company should execute the work. So in future such problems will not arise,” he said.