Bhubaneshwar, Mar 19: The vision of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to bring environment friendly Natural Gas to Eastern India has today become a reality in Odisha, with Hon’ble Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas (Independent Charge) Shri Dharmendra Pradhan launching the implementation of City Gas Distribution (CGD) project in Bhubaneshwar and Cuttack at a function here on March 18, 2017 in the presence of Hon’ble MP (Cuttack) Shri Bhartruhari Mahtab, Bhubaneswar MP Dr. Prasanna Kumar Patsani and other dignitaries.
While addressing the gathering, MoPNG Shri Pradhan said, the natural Gas will be supplied to these cities through the Jagdishpur – Haldia & Bokaro – Dhamra Natural Gas Pipeline (JHBDPL), popularly known as ‘Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga’. Households and small industries in these cities can avail Piped Natural Gas (PNG) while vehicles can use Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) once the CGD networks become operational.
In Odisha, the pipeline will be constructed at an estimated investment of Rs 4,000 crores and have a length of about 762 km covering 13 districts, i.e., Bhadrak, Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Angul, Sundergarh, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Debagarh, Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack, Khordha, Puri and Kendrapara.
The Bhubaneshwar CGD project will entail a capital expenditure of around Rs.1000 crore. It will benefit around 25 lakh people in Khordha district and around 2.5 lakh households will be supplied with piped domestic natural gas. Moreover, 24 CNG stations will be commissioned in the first three to five years to supply environment friendly and economic CNG fuel to around 1 lakh vehicles.
Similarly, in Cuttack CGD project, the capital expenditure will be around Rs 750 crore. Around 26 lakh people will be benefitted by this project while 2.5 lakh households will get PNG connections. In addition, CNG will be available to 50,000 vehicles through 20 CNG stations which will be set up in next three to five years.
Natural gas will also be available to industries and commercial establishments, creating a gas based industrial hub, thus boosting the economy of the state in an environment-friendly manner. Almost 2,000 km of steel and MDPE pipelines will be laid for these two CGD networks. It is also expected that the arrival of the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga will provide direct and indirect employment to thousands of people.
Pradhan along with the event, also inagurated the Odisha office of GAIL (India) Limited in the city.
