City gas roadshow in Jaipur on Thursday

Oil regulator PNGRB will on Thursday hold a roadshow in Jaipur to attract investments in setting up networks to retail CNG and piped cooking gas in cities in Rajasthan and other states, officials said.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), the nodal agency for facilitating economic activities in natural gas distribution, is holding roadshows across the country to promote the 10th city gas distribution (CGD) bid round.

In the 10th bid round for giving licences to retail CNG to automobiles and piped natural gas (PNG) to household kitchens, 50 geographical areas or GAs spread over 124 districts in 14 states, covering 24 per cent of India's population and 18 per cent of its area, are being offered.

Thursday's roadshow in Jaipur is part of a series of roadshows planned by PNGRB over the next few weeks before the deadline for bid submissions ends on February 5, 2019. Prior to this, a roadshow was held at Chandigarh.

Officials said, at present CGD authorisation has been given by PNGRB in 9 GAs in Rajasthan covering 13 districts of Kota, Bharatpur, Alwar, Barmer, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Baran, Chittorgarh, Bhilwara, Udaipur, Bundi, Dholpur. In the 10th CGD bidding round, 3 GAs covering 7 districts -- Banswara, Dungarpur, Ajmer, Pali, Rajsamand, Jalore, and Sirohi -- are being offered by PNGRB.

The 10th round comes on the back of the highly successful 9th bid round where 86 GAs covering 174 districts in 21 states/ UTs received a total of 406 bids.

Bidders in the 10th round have committed to give 2.2 crore domestic PNG connections, set up 4,600 CNG stations and lay 1.16 lakh inch-km of steel pipeline.

CGD networks entail building pipelines from the gas supply source to the doorstep of consumers as well as setting up CNG dispensing stations to supply the fuel to automobiles.