UP industry petitions Centre for natural gas

Industry in Uttar Pradesh today urged the Centre for providing gas for industrial purposes in the state.

A delegation of Micro, Small and Medium (MSME) chamber Indian Industries Association (IIA) met Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada here apprising him of the dismal natural gas scenario in Lucknow.

Green Gas Limited, Lucknow - a joint venture of GAIL India Ltd and IOC - was set up for arranging supplies for automobile; domestic; commercial and industrial consumers. It has a total allocation of 100,000 SCMD (Standard Cubic Metres Per Day) of gas from GAIL India, of which 30,000 SCMD had been allocated for industrial use.

“In the last over 4 years, Green Gas has set up its network, but highly unsatisfactorily, to cater only to automobile sector and no other consumer has, till date, benefited from availability of natural gas in Lucknow,” IIA president Anil Gupta lamented.

There had been an allocation of 100,000 SCMD from GAIL to Green Gas and since the standalone demand for automobile sector in Lucknow is less than that, there had been huge unutilised allocation of natural gas with Green Gas since 2006, he added.

An agreement was signed between IIA and Green Gas on October 15, 2008 for augmenting gas supplies to industrial consumers.

According to IIA, the company had indicated that it would be able to meet the requirement of industries located in Amausi and Sarojini Nagar industrial areas only. Consequently, a few industries had even signed agreements with Green Gas for supply of piped natural gas in July/August 2009.

However, till now no concrete measures have been taken and there are no indications from Green Gas as to what were its plans to start the supplies, IIA added.Meanwhile, Prasada had assured to look into the matter at the earliest.