Ministry cancels gas allocation to Maruti Udyog

New Delhi, Jan 7: Petroleum ministry has cancelled the natural gas allocation to car manufacturer Maruti Udyog Ltd (MUL) and reallocated the same to Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL) to meet the CNG demand of automobiles in Delhi.

"The gas linkage committee (GLC) last month cancelled the 0.5 million cubic metres per day of gas allocated to MUL and decided to reallocate to the IGL," senior petroleum ministry officials said here.

When contacted, petroleum Minister Ram Naik confirmed the development saying "MUL’s gas allocation was of temporary nature and we have now decided to cancel that to meet the growing requirement of CNG for transport vehicles in Delhi."

MUL was allocated 0.5 million cubic metres of gas from the Hazira-Bijapur-Jagdishpur (HBJ) pipeline on temporary basis till such time as the Delhi vidyut board’s pragati power plant is commissioned, he said.
A Maurti spokesperson, however, said that the company was receiving its quota of gas and production was going on smoothly.

Stating that IGL’s allocation has been increased from 0.38 million cubic meters per day to 0.88 million cubic meters per day, Mr Naik said stand-by allocations for other small industries in Delhi have not been touched.

Out of the total availability of 39-40 million cubic metres per day of natural gas on HBJ pipeline, fallback or stand-by allocations to industries in and around Delhi is around 1.32 million cubic metres per day.

To address the dispensing bottleneck, IGL is procuring 29 new compressors and 300 new dispensers, Mr Naik said.

By February end, IGL would be geared to dispense 10 lakh kgs per day of CNG, which would be adequate to service 8,000 buses plus other vehicles per day.

— PTI