With less than 5% uptake, West Asia crisis forces Bengaluru to revisit its gas pipeline project

While Bengaluru Urban district has about 60,48,690 households, PNG connections have nearly reached 3 lakhs. It means that only 4.96 per cent of residents in the city have domestic PNG connections.

The city gas distribution project was awarded in 2015 by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board to GGL, which has laid pipes in Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural and Mangaluru. The project aimed to draw natural gas from the 1,000 km-long Dabhol-Bengaluru pipeline and to supply it within 4395 sq km of Bengaluru Urban and the rural district, which includes outskirts like Nelamangala, Doddaballapur, Devanahalli, Hoskote and Anekal.

GAIL started laying pipelines in 2017 but has not achieved its goal. It has covered the HSR Layout, Jigani, Whitefield, Peenya, and Thanisandra areas but has not acquired the anticipated number of customers. “There are a lot of procedures involved in getting PNG connections, and the public does not want to take it up,” the official said.

Chief secretary writes to GBA corporations

While the agencies have allegedly been least bothered for all these years, the West Asia conflict has put them in a fix. Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh has written a letter to Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) corporations offering to support the expansion of the GAIL network. In a letter dated March 17, Rajneesh asked the corporations to provide permission to lay pipelines on a “priority and emergency basis”.

However, residents have a different version.

“We have always been supportive of GGL supply, but they were the ones who were not keen for all these years. In 2017-18, they issued applications from these apartments and enrolled customers. But even after many years, they did not provide the supply. Now, they are offering to give connections, but resident welfare associations have changed, and people have moved forward. An instant decision cannot be made,” a member of the Bangalore Apartment Federation (BAF) said.

A source said that representatives from the BAF, GGL, and the civic agencies have been holding frequent meetings recently. “We are ready to get piped gas, provided they complete the connection process, and there must not be any delay in implementing it. If the GAIL pipeline is present within a 2 km radius of the apartment, they can lay pipe to the apartment. It has to be done first,” a BAF member said.

A GBA official said that installing the GAIL pipeline is still a complex process. “The local MLAs don’t allow it as it leads to breaking up roads, inconveniencing people. On the other hand, the traffic police also complain about the same issue. There has been no single instance where the pipeline has been installed on time,” the official said.

Another official said the Central Government has not promoted PNG enough. “While the domestic LPG cylinders have been subsidised and provided, there was no attempt to promote PNG. For 45 days, one needs to spend around Rs 970 for domestic LPG but Rs 1,200-1,300 for PNG,” the official said.

There are about 608 commercial and industrial PNG connections in Bengaluru and 155 compressed natural gas (CNG) stations across Bengaluru. But demand for commercial and industrial connections has seen a spike in the wake of the West Asia conflict.

With 50-60 per cent of the PNG and CNG produced in India, GGL believes that even if customers for whom pipelines have already been laid opt for the gas, it will reduce dependency on fuel imports.

GGL says it is going to lay pipelines on a war footing, following instructions from the Central Government.
“There are a lot of agencies and permissions involved. Laying pipelines consumes a lot of time. But now, the Government has asked us to get clearances in a time-bound manner. If the permission from the civic agency is not provided on time, it will be taken as a deemed permission, and we can start laying pipelines,” the GGL official said.