Centre invites bids for Rs 10000 cr gas project

Mumbai, Mar 24: Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora today said the Centre has invited bids, both by domestic and foreign companies, to make an investment of over Rs 10,000 crore in a city gas development (CGD) project in the country.

Addressing a news conference here today, Mr Deora said ''Keeping in view the huge investment required for the ambitious project, we have invited both domestic as well as foreign companies to actively participate in it.'' He said over two crore households, falling under 200 towns across the country, would be connected through the piped natural gas (PNG) within the next few years. Later, the remaining parts of the country would also be covered under the project.

He said the Gas Authrority of India Limited (GAIL) has already identified over 30 cities in different states for the project.

Mr Deora informed that the foundation for this significant development has been laid with the enactment of Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board Act, 2006, finalisation of policy of gas pipelines and CGD projects and constitution of the regulatory board for the same.

He said PNG is not only cheaper but also safer than that of LPG.

Moreover, there is no need of changing the refills everytime whenever your kitchen cylinder gets exhausted as the domestic gas is supplied through pipelines under low pressure.

The Minister said the idea was mooted during his stint as Mayor of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). In 1977, he had discussed the issue with the then Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) chairman N V Prasad. Since then PNG has come a long way, as it has already been implemented partly in metros like Delhi and Mumbai.

Replying to a media query, he said the discussions were still on with the Pakistan government over reduction of transportation and transmission tariff, as proposed by it, for the much-touted Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project.

Though a meeting was recently held with a team of Pakistan government officials on the topic, the Minister said no conclusion could be reached. He, however, hoped that the issue would be resolved in near future.

Asked to comment if his Ministry was under pressure from the US Government on the project, he emphasised ''We're not under any kind of pressure''.

Mr Deora said the other project of similar nature, being considered by the Ministry for the replacement of conventional LPG, is coal-bed methane (CBM).

The Minister said discoveries of the CBM blocks had already been made in this sector in states like Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, but the production is yet to begin at the commercial level.

It was despite the fact that the CBM blocks at quite a few places have already been awarded by the government to the aspirant agencies, he added.

UNI