Residents of Hubballi-Dharwad will now get Piped Natural Gas (PNG) as Indian Oil-Adani Gas Pvt. Ltd. (IOAG) has laid PNG network to a length of 220 km in three localities in the twin cities and plans to provide PNG connections to at least 30,000 households by the end of this current financial year.
Addressing presspersons here on Wednesday, Senior Manager (Project Construction) of IOAG Arun Nayak, HR Head Umesh Mattennavar, Associate Manager Basavaraj K.M. and other officials said that they had set a target of providing 40,000 PNG connections and plan commissioning around 30,000 connections.
Mr. Arun Nayak said that the IOAG had now laid 158 km of PNG network — 118 km of MDP (Medium Density Polyethelene) pipeline and 40 km of steel pipeline — in Navanagar and Badami Nagar of Hubballi and Gandhi Nagar in Dharwad.
“The City Gas Distribution (CGD) Project Dharwad was initiated in September 2015 for setting up CGD network in Dharwad geographical area and in a span of four years, 158 km of pipeline has been laid. With an estimated investment of ₹ 205 crore, the project aims at providing PNG to 40,000 customers and also provide Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) through 10 CNG stations by 2021,” he said.
To a query, Mr. Arun Nayak admitted that there was delay in the execution of work as all the requisite approvals were sanctioned in 2017 and subsequently, the work was initiated.
“Now, we have expedited the work with the allotment to five contractors. And, the plan is to have a CDG network of around 700 km in the twin cities. We plan to add a few hundred kilometres of CGD network by the end of this current financial year,” he said.
Mr. Nayak said that already 300 PNG connections had been provided in Navanagar area and there were 5,000 registrations for PNG in three localities.
“Depending on the locality, it will take one month to three months for providing PNG connections to customers who have registered for the service. It is cheaper and environment friendly. Compared to LPG, it is cheaper by 10 %,”, he said.
Associate Manager Mr. Basavaraj said that they planned to extend the CGD network to Vidyanagar area and localities around J.K. School in Hubballi and then, other areas would be covered. Mr. Umesh said that there were lot of benefits of PNG as it would be available round the clock and there was no storage required. There would be greater safety and consumers would pay for what they use, he said.
