The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : CNG stations by May for Vijayawada

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 08, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

CNG stations by May for Vijayawada

By A. Saye Sekhar

VIJAYAWADA, FEB. 7. Vijayawada will have at least four outlets of compressed natural gas (CNG) for automobile consumption by mid-May while the CNG will get under way in Hyderabad by 2007-end.

Vehicles run on CNG in Mumbai and Delhi, following a Supreme Court direction, while 11 more cities have been identified with very high pollution levels. Hyderabad also figures in the list and the day is not very far for Vijayawada to find its place in it.

Against this background, the Bhagyanagar Gas Limited (BGL), a joint venture of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), Kakinada Seaports Private Limited (KSPL) and Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (APIDC), has taken up the CNG project for vehicles initially and piped gas for domestic consumption eventually in Vijayawada and also the State Capital.

Rs. 260-cr project

The company's project, including gas supply and infrastructure development, is estimated to cost Rs. 260 crores. While Rs. 57 crores is earmarked for Vijayawada, Rs. 196 crores will be spent on it for the twin cities.

As Vijayawada has been termed the seed project, it will come up first. Apart from the mother station, three more outlets are planned for the city, according to A. Viswanatha Sarma, Head, Commercial wing of BGL.

He discloses that gas measuring 0.1 million standard cubic metres a day (MMSCMD) has already been allocated by the Ministry of Petroleum for the CNG stations in Vijayawada. As GAIL is already supplying gas to the private sector power project, Lanco Kondapalli, through a pipeline, the new nine-km-long pipeline is being drawn from this point at Kondapalli to Vijayawada.

Conversion kit

The CNG is said to be 60 per cent cheaper than petrol in the exiting market. A kit will be sold by authorised private companies for converting the existing engines to run on CNG.

While the conversion kit is expected to cost anywhere between Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 22,000 for auto-rickshaws, it is likely to range from Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 28,000 in case of cars and other four-wheelers. Initially, the BGL is targeting these vehicles. If a vehicle is run almost 2,000 km a month on an average, the cost of conversion can be nullified in less than two years.

In case of buses and heavy vehicles, the conversion is a costly affair. To convert a bus into a CNG-compatible engine, it costs at least Rs. 5 lakhs. However, the BGL is talking to authorities of Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC), which has a fleet of 19,000 buses, for conversion. While 2,500 buses are operated as city services in the State Capital, 350 are run in Vijayawada.

If RTC agrees for conversion, the BGL proposes to have 20 high volume CNG dispensing stations of which 13 would be set up in RTC bus depots in the twin cities.

As far as piped gas for domestic use is concerned, CNG is expected to cost Rs. 80 in lieu of the Rs. 300 a cylinder in terms of quantity.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh