PNGRB extends bidding to issue licenses for CNG retailing

Oil regulator PNGRB has extended bidding to issue licenses for retailing CNG and piped cooking gas in 20 cities, including Haridwar and Aligarh, by one month following poor response for more than half of the cities.
Of the 20 cities for which Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) wanted to issue city gas distribution licenses, 8 did not get any bid while 4 others got single bids at the close of tender on Friday.
"Hence, it has been decided to extend the last date for issuance and submission of bids by one month," PNGRB said in a notice.
Bids can now be submitted by June 22.

In February, PNGRB invited bids for development of city gas distribution networks in East Godavari, West Godavari, Belgaum, Ahmadnagar, Krishna, Muzaffarnagar, Badaun, Aligarh, Bulandshahr, Banaskantha, Tumkur, Latur, Dhar, Dahod, Shivpuri Haridwar, Dharwad, Bidar, Osmanabd and Udham Singh Nagar.
PNGRB said it received no bids for Badaun, Aligarh and Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh, Latur in Maharashtra, Dhar and Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh, Bidar in Karnataka and Osmanabad in Maharashtra.

Further, only single bid was received for Ahmadnagar in Maharashtra, Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, Banaskantha and Dahod in Gujarat, it said.
Bidders were asked to quote the tariff they will charge for the pipeline network to be laid in the city and the compression charge for dispensing CNG (compressed natural gas) over the 25 years.

They were also asked to quote the inch-kilometre of steel pipelines they will lay during first five years and the number of domestic consumers proposed to be connected by piped natural gas, according to the regulator.
The bidding parameters remain the same.
This is the fifth bid round even though PNGRB is yet to award licenses of the previous rounds.
Fourteen cities offered in the fourth round announced in October 2013 are yet to be awarded licenses.
These are Eranakulam in Kerala; Rangareddy/ Medak, Nalgonda and Khammam in Andhra Pradesh; Bengaluru rural and urban districts in Karnataka; Raigarh, Pune and Thane in Maharashtra; Daman; Dadar & Nagar Haveli; Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh; Guna in Madhya Pradesh; Panipat in Haryana and Amritsar in Punjab.

To accelerate deployment of city gas distribution (CGD) network in the country, PNGRB had invited bids in 2009 for 13 cities in first two rounds.
The third round of bidding was opened in July 2010 and concluded in February 2011 (after extension), but final awards of some cities are yet to be made because of certain litigation involving PNGRB and a few other parties.