Speaking to The Financial Express here, the Gujarat Gas managing director Edwin Bowles said that it was imperative to make the running of vehicles run on CNG "competitive" vis-a-vis other cheap fuels such as diesel. "One such way of doing this would be to abolish sales tax currently imposed on CNG-run vehicles," he said.

Bowles also sought lowering of the import duty levied on conversion kits. "Currently, since these kits are totally imported, they are pretty steeply priced at around Rs 35,000 per kit," Bowles said pointing out that this stiff cost was a major deterrent for a large number of people desirous of converting their vehicles into CNG-run vehicles. "The Gujarat government which has been extremely cooperative in the past should come forward with tax concessions forpopularising these vehicles as well," he said. Gujarat Gas has been operating CNG vehicles in Gujarat for over five years now.

It may be mentioned that Gujarat Gas, an erstwhile joint venture between the Arvind Mafatlal group and the public-sector Gujarat Industrial Investment Corporation, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the global gas giant British Gas which acquired the company some months back.

Asked about the company's long-term plans, Bowles said the main aim of the company was to spread its presence in the state in transmission and distribution of LNG which he described as "the fuel of the future." On the drawing board are plans to expand the gas grid network from Vapi to Veraval. "To begin with, we are in the process of expanding in cities like Vadodara, Hazira and Ankleswar," he said.

In this connection, the company recently commissioned a Rs 115 crore, 73 km long gas pipeline between Hazira and Ankleswar in a bid to enhance the capacity of LNG being supplied to industrial units in these areas."The pipeline, which is 18 inches in diameter, is expected to increase distributing capacity from the present 7.7 lakh cubic metres of LNG to 11.7 lakh cubic metres within a year," Bowles said. "We believe that there is an enormous market for LNG and are anticipating a demand four times in excess of the supply in the near future and therefore we want to consolidate our position as the main distributor of the gas here," he said adding that the company was currently looking at a number of LNG-related project which were in the pipeline as possible avenues of growth. He, however, refused to divulge any details in this regard.