Post hurdles, PNG project gathers pace
VIJAYAWADA: Overcoming major hurdles, the piped natural gas (PNG) project has gathered pace in the city after a gap of six months. Bhagyanagar Gas Limited (BGL), floated jointly by the Gas Authority of India (GAIL) and the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), re-launched its piped gas services at Satyanarayanapuram and Mutyalampadu a few days ago.
The project ran into rough weather due to the delay in obtaining permission from the railway authorities for laying the gas pipelines beneath the rail tracks along the flyover from Singhnagar to Mutyalampadu. The irrigation department had also to be approached since pipelines were to be drawn under the Budameru and Eluru canals through the horizontal diagonal drilling method.
With the district administration extending support to the project, clearance was easily obtained from the department. Collector A Babu is keen to popularise PNG as a reliable and safe substitute to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). He launched the project at Satyanarayanapuram and interacted with various PNG consumers, sensitising them on the uses of PNG.
The collector said that efforts were underway to introduce the piped gas in six ‘smart divisions’ of the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC). The aim is to save subsidy on LPG by diverting the consumers to PNG.
In all the smart divisions, officials are trying to ensure round the clock water and power supplies apart from gas, all through pipelines. The project could not be extended to other parts of the city after it was launched at Singhnagar on the outskirts due to the aforementioned hurdles in laying pipelines.
It is learnt that the response in Singhnagar and the surrounding Prakash Nagar and Andhra Prabha colony was not encouraging for want of public awareness. Of more than 5,000 LPG connections, only 200 opted for PNG in Singh Nagar in spite of claims by the BGL that it is cheaper than the LPG refills by Rs 125 besides being eco-friendly and safe. “In Satyanarayanapuram and Mutyalampadu areas with 18,000 LPG connections, we have made a modest beginning with 20 piped connections,” a spokesman of BGL said.
Now that permission has been obtained from the railways, works relating to the mainline in a stretch of 18 km from the mother station to Auto Nagar covering Governorpet, Route no 5 and Moghalrajpuram were nearing completion, he said.
The company is looking to extend the piped gas facility to residents of Gandhinagar and Durgapuram within three months. Sub-lines are to be laid and connected to the mainline covering these areas, the source explained. “There are around 4 lakh LPG connections and it is obviously a daunting task to replace them all with PNG connections overnight. But we are prepared to equip at least 25,000 households with piped gas,” the spokesman told TOI.
Already PNG pipelines have been laid from the BGL’s plant at Kakinada to Kondapalli, and from there to its grid at Pamulakalva.
