E-Paper
Gas stuck in the pipeline!
IMAGINE A company spending Rs 39 crore on a project in Lucknow still waiting for a host of clearances from the State Government departments. The case involves Green Gas Ltd (GGL)?a joint venture between Gail (India) Ltd and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) implementing the City Gas Project with no clues on State Government?s latest stance. The GGL is facing another problem?the much-needed explosives licence required from the Controller of Explosives, Govt of India is also awaited.
IMAGINE A company spending Rs 39 crore on a project in Lucknow still waiting for a host of clearances from the State Government departments.
The case involves Green Gas Ltd (GGL)—a joint venture between Gail (India) Ltd and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) implementing the City Gas Project with no clues on State Government’s latest stance.
The GGL is facing another problem—the much-needed explosives licence required from the Controller of Explosives, Govt of India is also awaited. “We have applied for the explosives licence and expect to get it soon for the Lucknow project,” GGL Managing Director JK Singh told HT Lucknow Live.
“Ever since a private player, Ahmedabad-based Adani Energy Ltd, applied for distributing piped gas here some months ago, the officials heading various State Government departments are refusing to provide further clearances for a host of GGL’s proposal to commence work in designated areas where gas is proposed to be supplied,” he said.
“If this kind of confusion continues with nobody in the government willing to disclose the exact status of GGL’s City Gas project following entry of a private sector player, all the future plans of the company here would start getting affected,” he said.
Singh said the company had recently shot off a letter to the Department of Environment, Government of UP on April 27 this year while urging that all the State Government departmental heads be informed that the GGL is still implementing the City Gas Poject in the city. “We also intend to apply for State Government clearances for laying the gas pipeline from Charbagh to Gomti Nagar,” he said.
Long delays in acquiring the necessary clearances from the State Government would also defeat the very objective of bringing Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Piped Natural Gas (PNG) to the city, he said.
The State Government itself invited an Expression of Interest (EOI) from GGL during September 2005 for gas distribution in the city through the Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation (UPSIDC). The company is to make a total investment of Rs 56 crore during the phase-I of the City Gas Project in the State Capital, Singh said.
The Mother Station for supply of CNG set up at Amausi is already dispensing 300 kgs of CNG per day. The total allocation of CNG for Lucknow is 0.1 million cubic metres per day, he added.
