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The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board on Friday invited bids for city gas distribution (CGD) network in five geographical areas (GAs) covering 27 districts across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.
The oil regulator invited electronic bids under ‘11A CGD Bidding Round’ and the last date of bid submission is April 6. Along with bids for 61 GAs the 11th CGD round will cover 28.47 per cent of the country’s population and 34.66 per cent of its area.
“Upon finalisation of bids under these rounds, approximately 88 per cent of the country’s area will be authorised for development of CGD Network to provide access of natural gas to approximately 98 per cent of country’s population,” PNGRB said in a statement.
The regulator had launched the 11th CGD Bidding Round inSeptember 2021 for development of CGD network in 65 GAs spread over 215 districts (212 complete and three partly) in 19 States and one Union Territory covering 26 per cent of India’s population and 33 per cent of its area. The technical bids were opened in December 17-22, 2021 wherein 439 bids were received from 26 entities against 61 GAs. This is expected to fetch investment of more than ₹80,000 crore and generate employment.
In the 10th CGD bidding round in November 2018, around 50 GAs were authorised for development of the CGD network. While in the ninth round of CGD bidding (May 2018), PNGRB offered 86 GAs covering 174 districts (156 complete and 18 part) spread over 22 states and union territories covering 29 per cent of India’s population and 24 per cent of its geographical area.
Extensive coverage
At present, there are 228 GAs authorised by the regulator across 27 States and union territories covering around 53 per cent of the country’s geographical area and 70 per cent of its population. In the past, PNGRB has conducted 8 rounds of bidding for developing CGD infrastructure resulting in award of 56 GAs, including 29GAs, which were initiated before PNGRB and six government mandated GAs.
As of March 2021, India had a total of 78.65 lakh piped natural gas (PNG) connections and 3,094 compressed natural gas (CNG) stations on a provisional basis.
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