Union Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday came down heavily on the State Government for allegedly not providing land for the Piped Natural Gas (PNG) project in the twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.
The Minister made this allegation while launching supply of the PNG for residents of Bhubaneswar. With this, the GAIl started supply of the environment-friendly PNG to 255 houses in Nalco Nagar located at Chandrasekharpur here.
“Women will benefit a lot once PNG is connected to households. I had requested Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to provide land for the PNG project in Delhi recent. However, the State Government is delaying giving lands,” said Pradhan.
He said the sooner land would be provided the earlier PNG would be connected to all households in Bhubaneswar, including of the Chief Minister.
The Minister praised GAIl for the early commencement of this 1st phase of supply of PNG in Bhubaneswar which was earlier expected to be completed by March 2018.
Under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga, the Natural Gas Grid would pass through five states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, and the longest of 769 km would be built in Odisha. This pipeline would lead to industrial development of eastern India, Pradhan said.
“Based on this gas-based pipeline, we are also planning to commission Talcher Fertiliser plant. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to lay foundation stone for this project in coming November,” he informed.
In Odisha, the Natural Gas Pipeline would be constructed at an estimated investment of Rs 4,000 crore and have a length of about 769 km covering 13 districts, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Angul, Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Deogarh, Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack, Khordha, Puri and Kendrapara and will connect major industrial clusters in these districts.
The GAIl has also plans to provide PNG connections to the adjacent Jeevan Bima Colony and Maitri Vihar Colony covering a total of 1,000 houses. Assessment is also being carried out for PNG supply to leading hotels, hospitals and industrial units of the city.
Initially, natural gas would reach Bhubaneswar in special containers called “cascades” which would be transported by road from Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh. later, natural gas would be supplied through the Jagdishpur-Haldia & Bokaro-Dhamra Natural Gas Pipeline (JHBDPl). The pipeline is presently under construction and likely to be completed by 2019.
Among others, GAIl CMD BC Tripathi and Nalco CMD Dr TK Chand were preent.