By June, Chennai’s first piped natural gas (PNG) connection in homes will be given. This, thanks to the State government stepping up and directing line departments to provide permissions, especially road cutting, for laying pipelines from the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) terminal at Ennore.
The main pipeline for now will run along the Jawaharlal Nehru Salai, via Manali, to Madhavaram Circle, reach Kathipara and then to Meenabakkam. Branch lines would run to residential areas. The first customers are expected to be a very large apartment complex near Tirumangalam.
Of the 222 CNG outlets to be set up in Chennai and Tiruvallur, around 70 have become operational and daily 10,000 kg of CNG is being supplied to around 6,800 vehicles, of which around 6,000 are CNG vehicles sold by manufacturers, with the rest being retrofitted ones. “The government is encouraging retrofitting too and we are seeing many auto rickshaws that used to run on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) now switching over to this new cleaner and safer fuel.
Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu district are being covered by another company.
