'IGL can leverage petrol pumps for CNG distribution'

New Delhi, Mar 27: Assocham today suggested Indra Prastha Gas Ltd (IGL) to leverage upon the existing infrastructure of oil marketing companies in and around the national capital region for wider distribution of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).

The move along with other focussed efforts can push up the growth in CNG vehicles to over 25 per cent in next two years, it said.

Companies like IndianOil, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum have huge chains of petrol pumps in which CNG dispensation centres could also be added.

The only issue is that they should be persuaded to share their infrastructure facilities with IGL, within whose mandate falls the CNG supply, the industry body said.

''The firms should be called upon to atleast create a space for putting up additional CNG dispensation centres at their existing petrol pumps and allow IGL to share their infrastructure wherever possible.'' In an analysis on CNG's popularity undertaken by Assocham unveils that in the last six to seven years, only 146 CNG filling stations have been set up in Delhi against each year's commitment of 80.

Majority of such stations are concentrated in south Delhi.

The 146 centres currently cater to fuel requirements of less than two lakh vehicles of which about 90,000 are autos, 70,000 private vehicles, 15,000 buses and remaining are taxis and other modes of transportation. Ideally, until today over 550 CNG filling stations should have been added in the national capital region (NCR).

Despite CNG-fed vehicles registering a 15 per cent growth in Delhi uptil January this year, policy initiatives have hardly been taken by IGL to create dispensation centres for the clean fuel in other parts of NCR like Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad. As a result of which pollution is on a rise in these areas, the chamber opined.

''The automobile sector is growing at a very high rate, leaving lot of challenges for fuel suppliers particularly those of CNG in view of its demand and environment-friendly nature which could be meted out with growing number of CNG filling stations,'' Assocham President Venugopal N Dhoot said.

The remedy could be a multi-pronged strategy that should be evolved by policy makers in consultation with IGL, he added.

He also called for immediate identification of locations in Faridabad, Gurgaon and Noida for setting up CNG filling stations.

The municipalities and local governments should be asked by the state administration to lease out suitable locations without any procedural hassles as the prices of diesel and petrol are also sky rocketing, said the Assocham chief.

UNI