Rourkela: The much awaited piped natural gas (PNG) supply is all set to be inaugurated here for residents of Sundargarh and Jharsuguda districts Thursday. Consumers, both domestic and commercial, will get piped natural gas (PNG). The facility will be inaugurated here at Bisra Maidan.
Union minister of tribal welfare Juel Oram will participate in the programme while PM Narendra Modi will inaugurate through a live video streaming from New Delhi, said Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) Rajeev Garg while interacting with the media here.
“This will start operating by next year and work will begin sometimes in January. We are optimistic this will be over soon,” Garg said, adding that the natural gas pipeline will be constructed at an estimated investment of Rs 4,000cr, covering around 13 districts in Odisha.
“The completion of the project is expected to generate 19,800 direct employments for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled categories of people in the state,” Garg added.
The GM for Odisha P Behera, said “The total investment in Sundargarh over next 25 years would be around Rs 944 crore. The district will have 20 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations and it will cover over 12130.70 square kilometers with a capacity for all urban and semi urban centers in the district under its 17 blocks.”
This will be supplied through high quality plastic pipes laid underground with high safety standard, said Garg, adding the supply will be supplied households, commercial establishments, industries and others.
The steel pipes will have high pressure whereas the plastic pipes will have low pressure. These are very safe because the PNG is much lighter than the LPG is heavy and sits down leading to fire and other explosions.
“The maintenance is very strong so in case of any leak in the plastic pipe our team will reach there soon, besides as it will remain underground there will be fewer chances of any kind of mishap,” Garg added.
It may be noted here that the natural gas pipelines undertaken by GAIL will connect major industrial clusters of Khurdha, Jharsuguda, Rourkela, Sambalpur, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Angul, Dhenkanal, Kalinganagar, Jajpur and Paradip.
Earlier, GAIL had launched the PNG supply in Bhubaneswar October 20.
PNN