Rs 2,000-cr CNG project to come up in Bangalore

Rs 2,000-cr CNG project to come up in Bangalore
Deccan Herald

Speaking after the inauguration of GAIL-supported Air Pollution Related Disease Diagnostic Centre at the SDS TB & Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases at Hosur Road, GAIL Finance Director R K Goel said the project to supply CNG would be taken up at Bangalore at a cost of Rs 2,000 crore. The natural gas project will be a joint venture programme.

Even as transport authorities ruled out the use of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for vehicles and introduced Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) citing it to be more environment-friendly, a senior official of Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) on Monday said CNG would be a reality in Bangalore in two years’ time.

Speaking after the inauguration of GAIL-supported Air Pollution Related Disease Diagnostic Centre at the SDS TB & Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases at Hosur Road, GAIL Finance Director R K Goel said the project to supply CNG would be taken up at Bangalore at a cost of Rs 2,000 crore.

The natural gas project will be a joint venture programme. The project, according to Mr Goel, will have an equity participation of 22.5 per cent from HPCL or BPCL. (Talks are on with both the companies) The most probable line of transmission would be the Cochin-Mangalore-Bangalore route, he said.

Mr Goel said the sourcing of gas, was, however, a problem. “We are looking at Oman, Qatar, Australia and Iran.”

He added that for a start, GAIL could make do with the gas requirement from Reliance India. “Part of the gas used by Reliance to feed its energy and power projects can be used for Southern India,” Mr Goel added.

He also said that the proposed gas pipeline from Iran to India had been delayed because of differing political opinions on the issue.

The Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline grid becoming an issue of controversy indicated that the sourcing and transportation of gas to India was a problem, Mr Goel observed. He added that natural gas was a boon for the power, fertiliser and industrial sectors.

Alka Kumar, Deputy General Manager (Corporate Social Responsibility) GAIL, said Bangalore was a city of focus in relation to air pollution. “We concentrate our projects on the 23 cities that have been delineated by the Supreme Court as highly polluted cities, and Bangalore is one of them.”

Earlier, Medical Education Minister V S Acharya requested GAIL to ensure that the CNG project would be set up “at a much earlier date than scheduled.”

Dr Acharya added that CNG would help reduce petrol and diesel consumption which in turn would help reduce air pollution in Bangalore which had 26 lakh vehicles.