Govt launches 12th CGD bid round for GAs in North-East, to take CGD to islands next

New Delhi: Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri launched the 12th bid round for City Gas Distribution (CGD) on Thursday under which seven areas located in the North-East and Jammu and Kashmir are on offer. “The government is focused on promoting the usage of natural gas as a fuel/feedstock across the country to increase its share in the primary energy mix from the current level of 6.2 percent to 15 percent by 2030,” said Puri while launching the 12th bid round. The seven areas on offer are expected to see an investment of $4.5 billion on setting up gas infrastructure.

“The electronic bids would be invited from 13th October, 2023, the last date for submission of bids is 11th January 2024 and PNGRB intends to finalise the award by March 2024,” said the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) in an official statement.

12th CGD bid round: Seven GAs on offer

The seven geographical areas (GAs) are spread across the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Union territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. Mizoram, where Assembly Elections have been announced, will also be included once clearance from the Election Commission is obtained. Currently, there are 300 authorised GAs by PNGRB covering around 88 percent of the country’s geographical area and 98 percent of its population. After the completion of the 12th round, all areas in the country and the entire population will have access to CGD, except for Mizoram, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.

Want to take CGD to islands next to achieve 100 percent CGD coverage: Puri

Launching the bid round, Puri said after this round, the government would take the CGD network to islands, which are the only remaining areas not having access to piped gas. On being asked which are the sectors from where demand for natural gas is expected to emanate in order to push its share to 15 percent, Puri said that the government expects growth in demand from the CGD sector, fertiliser industry, other industries which consume gas in furnaces and the thermal power sector. The city gas distribution sector currently consumed 35 Million Metric Standard Cubic Meters per Day (MMSCMD) and it is projected to go up to 115 MMSCMD by 2028, said PNGRB Member Gajendra Singh. However, the minister remarked that the increase in demand is being looked at as an aggregate and sub-sector-specific targets have not been fixed. “The increase in demand for natural gas in various sub-sectors will be as and when it comes. But we know that there is unmet demand across all the existing sectors that consume natural gas,” said Puri.

In order to boost the usage of natural gas, the government has put thrust on the expansion of national gas grid pipeline and city gas distribution (CGD) network and on setting up of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals. At present, about 23,500 km of gas pipelines are under operation in the country and around 12,000 km of pipelines are approved or are under construction.

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