Only 791 houses get Piped Natural Gas in Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Kakinada

Hyderabad: Gas distribution networks have failed to reach targets of domestic piped natural gas connections in Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Kakinada. In five years, Hyderabad had to get 2.66 lakh PNG connections, but so far only 791 houses have got connections. Lack of sufficient supply to gas distribution network companies and fall in gas production in KG Basin, and no willingness from housing colonies are being cited as the major reasons for not achieving the targets.

Only Medchal and Suchitra areas in Hyderabad are being covered for piped natural gas. Bhagyanagar Gas Limited, a joint venture of GAIL and HPCL, couldn’t achieve the target of 97,267 gas connection in Vijayawada and only 159 houses were supplied natural gas by 2014.  In Kakinada, against a target of 15,000 by 2014, only 2082 households have been connected.  In Vijayawada, only parts of Ajitsingh Nagar is being supplied PNG.

Mr A.K Mithal, managing director of Bhagyanagar Gas Limited Corporation, said, “The major issue has been availability of gas. There is shortage of supply from Reliance. The other major setback in terms of PNG is no willingness from the customers and housing societies who prefer subsidized LPG cylinders though it is costlier than PNG. PNG has several advantages over LPG, like no booking or waiting problem, payment as per usage, no pilferage and accurate meter reading.

Initially PNG costs BGL around Rs 20,000 for each lifetime installation, however, as per the PNG Regulatory Board norms, we are collecting only Rs 5000 refundable deposit. Whatever profit the company is getting from CNG has been covering the losses of PNG.” He added that several areas in all towns had been identified for domestic PNG supply. On February 21, 2015, BGL had written to the district registrar stating, “BGL is visiting each registered PNG customer and trying to convince them for taking PNG connection. We are facing resistance from certain societies, we request the district registrar to give directions to all these societies to take PNG connections.”

Meanwhile the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulator Board has issued notification for bidding of geographical areas in East Godavari and Krishna district excluding the existing authorized areas. The bids will close in April.