M’luru ‘City Gas’ scheme; PM to lay foundation stone today

Mangaluru: The foundation stone for the innovative ‘City Gas’ project of the central government will be laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday November 22^nd. Through this project, cooking gas will be supplied directly to each house in the city. The project will be implemented by GAIL Gas Ltd in 129 districts of the country including Mangaluru city.

The foundation stone will be laid at 4 pm at the Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi. The programme will be live telecast simultaneously in all the districts, which are to be covered under the scheme. Additionally, the bidding for the implementation of the programme also will be inaugurated simultaneously.

A programme has been organized in this connection separately in the Town Hall of the city and the function will take place at 2.30 pm on Thursday, November 22. Central minister Sadananda Gowda, MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, MLAs Vedavyas Kamath and Dr Y Bharat Shetty and mayor of MCC Bhaskar K will be the chief guests. On completion of the programme, arrangements have been made in the Town Hall for the direct live telecast of the foundation stone laying ceremony by PM Modi.

Pipeline work progress

GAIL (Gas Authority of India Limited), which is a central government enterprise, has already completed laying of the pipeline for the gas supply from Cochin to Mangaluru. The pipeline will be further laid to supply natural gas to MCF in the city. This pipeline will be 35 kilometre long and will cover 16 villages. A project is being drawn to supply the same gas to the citizens of the city through pipeline.

The Aim

Providing cooking gas to every house in the city is the aim of the scheme. For this the gas pipeline will be laid after obtaining permission from MCC, MESCOM and BSNL and also taking into account the water and drainage pipelines. Additionally, city gas bunks will also be installed at several places in the city.

Trial implementation at MRPL and MCF township

Around 200 to 500 houses and industries will be supplied with gas through pipeline as a trial implementation. The pipeline will be laid first in either MCF or MRPL Township near Surathkal. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) will arrive to Cochin terminal via ship from Qatar. However, if the gas is brought through an ‘LNG Bullet’ ship similar to the ‘LPG Bullet’ ship, there will be ample gas to feed 1000 connections per month.

There is also a possibility fo the gas to be brought in a ‘Cryogenic Tanker’ by road transport just like LPG tankers. For this a mall terminal will be set up in the city like the one in Cochin terminal to convert the LNG into gas form. Later, the gas as Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for vehicles, Piped Natural Gas (PNG) for household use, and for commercial and industrial use separately will be supplied by GAIL.