The Central Government on Thursday informed that the new liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) plants at Bhatinda in Punjab and at Paradip in Orissa would substantially increase the availability of cooking gas by pushing up their production by next year.
Replying to supplementaries in the Lok Sabha during Question Hour, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada informed the House that the third new LPG plant at Bina in Madhya Pradesh would come up between July and September.
Pointing out that LPG production in 2008-09 was 93.35 lakh tonnes, he said the consumption was 123.44 lakh tonnes, leading to import of 23.60 lakh tonnes to partly offset the shortfall. “There are 11 crore LPG connections today compared to eight crore connections earlier. There is a shortfall and it is met through imports,'' he said.
Mr. Prasada said the government was planning to augment production through new plants at Bhatinda, Paradip and Bina. Expansion and capacity addition of existing plants would also be done to ease the demand-supply situation, he said.
The provisional production for 2009-10 between April and December was pegged at 76.07 lakh tonnes, he said, adding that the consumption during the period was estimated to be 95.76 lakh tonnes with imports of 18.07 lakh tonnes.
