CNG facilities in Delhi to be expanded to ease shortages

Minister of petroleum and natural gas Murli Deora has asked the public sector Indra Prastha Gas Limited (IGL) and Gas Authoriy of India Ltd (GAIL) to work on war footing to improve the CNG supply to vehicles in Delhi in view of reported queues at Delhi CNG Stations.

Deora was informed that the current inadequacy of CNG supply in Delhi has been largely caused by the increase in demand by CNG buses, taxis, autos and private vehicles coming from neighboring suburbs (particularly Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Faridabad).

According to Om Narayan, managing director, IGL, there has been a 250-per cent growth of CNG users among private car owners in Delhi alone during last two years and with the recent hike in the prices of petrol and diesel, there has been a sharp rise in CNG conversion by vehicle owners.

Narayan said the expansion programme had been held up by the regulator due to ongoing clarification between IGL  and the ministry and the regulator, lack of allotment of new land for setting up supply facilities and bottlenecks faced by them in the expansion of CNG network in NCR towns particularly Noida, where IGL has already completed its pipeline network.

He also pointed to the mid-way stoppage of construction of the CNG station by Noida Authority, in which IGL has invested over Rs40 crore.

IGL plans to expand the dispensing capacity of CNG by 30 per cent to 40 per cent by installing 54 new electric motor driven compressors, and 120 CNG dispensers by December 2008. IGL is also in touch with DTC to allow utilisation of their depots at six locations for multiuse.

Presently, IGL runs 163 CNG stations in Delhi and caters to nearly 2.25 lakh vehicles (50 per cent each are public and private vehicles), filling over 13 lakh kgs / day. One month back it was only 11 lakh kg / day. Piped Natural Gas (PNG) is being supplied to around 1.25 lakh households in Delhi.

View: Auto videos | Auto picture galleries