The Delhi-Lucknow highways will soon become greener. Acting fast on the Centre?s approval for two green gas corridors on the 500-km route between New Delhi and Lucknow, GAIL India is setting up two green energy corridors. One route would run via Bareilly, Shahjehanpur, Moradabad and Ghaziabad, the other would run via Unnao, Kanpur, Auraiya, Mathura and Agra.

The state-run Navratna company is working on setting up CNG stations at every 100 kms. While in the first route, CNG stations already exist at Delhi, Bareilly, Moradabad and Ghaziabad, station at Shahjehapur is expected to be completed next year. On the other hand, on the Delhi-Lucknow route via Agra, CNG stations already exist at both endpoints as well as in Agra and Kanpur. But additional stations are being set up at Mathutra, Auraiyya and Unnao for the vehicles plying between the two cities. ?The central government is extending all help to make both these routes operational in the next two years,? said Jitin Prasad, minister of state for petroleum & natural gas.

Inaugurating the CNG mother station at Lucknow, Prasad said vehicle owners of CNG would now get at least one gas station within every 100-150 km on both highways.

The government has also set up Green Gas Ltd (GGL), a joint venture of GAIL (India) and Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL), for the implementation of city gas projects for supply of Piped Natural Gas (PNG) to domestic, commercial and industrial consumers and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) to automobile consumers in the cities of Lucknow and Agra, he added.

?We aim to supply piped natural gas to 5,000 homes in Lucknow in the next one year and 70,000 homes in the next five years. We are also going to increase the number of GNG stations to 80 in the next five years from the present 40. For this, we will expand the pipelines from 1,100 km at present by another 600 km,? said BC Tripathi, CMD, GAIL India.