Even a year and a half after signing an agreement with Indian Industries Association (IIA) to augment the supply of gas to industrial consumers, Green Gas Ltd (GGL), which had been incorporated to implement gas projects in Lucknow for supply of piped natural gas (PNG) to domestic, commercial and industrial consumers, has not commenced supply to a single industrial unit in the city.
Green Gas Ltd is a joint venture of Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) and Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL). This has also hampered the functioning and growth of medium and small industries in Uttar Pradesh, to some extent.
These industries, which already exist on the fringes, have an additional problem of not being provided natural gas despite the fact that GAIL has allocated 1 lakh scmd (standard cubic metres per day) to Green Gas, out of which 30,000 scmd has been allocated for industrial purpose.
Representing the case of industries, IIA, an apex representative body of MSMEs, has petitioned the minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Jitin Prasad to arrange for the supply of natural gas to industries in Lucknow without further delay. ?Pursuant to an agreement being signed between IIA and Green Gas in Oct 2008, Green Gas had indicated that, to begin with, it would be able to meet the requirement of industries located in Amausi and Sarojininagar areas of the city only. Consequent to this agreement, a few industries have even signed agreements with Green Gas for supply of PNG in July and August 2009. However, things have been moving at a snail?s pace and even after 15 months of signing the agreement, no concrete measures have been taken and there are no indications from Green Gas as to what are its plan to start the supplies,? said Anil Gupta, president, IIA.
However, interestingly, due to lack of proper infrastructure, Green Gas has not been able to dispense the entire allocated gas to the automobile sector in the city, forcing its allocation to lapse.
?The irony of the situation is that Green Gas has availability of a product and also has ready customers with whom it has already signed agreements with. But it is choosing to incur continuous losses and is also denying us our rightful share,? said GC Chaturvedi, former president of IIA.