City gas distribution bidding process to be completed by Oct


City gas distribution bidding process to be completed by Oct

Opens up investment potential of up to Rs 70,000 cr across country, says Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board

The 9th City Gas Distribution Bidding round, which has potential for investment of up to Rs 70,000 crore, has received a good response from both domestic companies and MNCs through their partners in India.

While the bidding process, which covers 86 geographical areas, is likely to be completed by October 2018, Telangana State, which will see the offer of 20 cities, has potential for investment of up to Rs 10,000 crore, according to Satpal Garg, and S Rath, Members of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board.

Outlining the potential and prospects for the bidding process, Garg said there is huge potential this time as gas availability is likely to go up with big plans from ONGC and Reliance. This can be gauged from the initial response and pre-bid meetings, Garg said, where both Indian major companies and MNCs have evinced interest.

PNGRB is in the process of offering 86 geographical areas covering 174 districts, spread over 22 states and union territories. These GAs cover 29 per cent of the country’s population and 24 per cent of its geographical area. After award of the gas under offer, gas distribution would reach 286 districts spread across 26 states and UTs, covering 60 crore people and 49 per cent of the population and 35 per cent of the country’s area.

Ashish Chatterjee, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said: “With initiatives such as increased deregulation in the fuel retail market, and less Government interference via new policies such as the Open Acreage Licence Policy and revenue sharing model for oil and gas exploration/ production blocks, the oil and gas sector is highly liberalised to attract private /foreign investment and to increase domestic production of oil and gas.

“The Ministry has brought about a number of changes in the bidding process to attract investments. Our efforts are directed towards being a facilitator from regulator,” Garg said.

SK Joshi, Chief Secretary of Telangana, said this was a big initiative towards providing clean energy. Telangana is already working with CGD entities to facilitate supply of CNG and piped natural gas.

While assuring all necessary support from Telangana, the CS said the setting up of the pipeline network must be made minimising the hardship to people. Anshul Gupta of Ernst & Young, said the Government move to develop 99 Smart Cities augurs well for the CGD network plan as they are ideally suited to implement CGD networks for gas supply to homes.

Referring to the manufacturing sector and the government move to increase its contribution to 25 per cent from 17 per cent by 2025, Gupta said this will also boost the demand for gas in manufacturing units.

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