Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday launched supply of Piped Natural Gas (PNG) for the residents of Bhubaneswar.

With this, GAIL (India) Limited,  India’s No. 1 Integrated Natural Gas company started supply of eco-friendly PNG to 255 houses in Nalco Nagar located at Chandrasekharpur area in the first phase of the project.

City Gas Distribution (CGD) projects in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack are being taken up in parallel with the Jagdishpur – Haldia & Bokaro – Dhamra Natural Gas Pipeline (JHBDPL), popularly known as ‘Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga’.

In Odisha, the Natural Gas Pipeline will be constructed at an estimated investment of Rs 4,000 crores and have a length of about 769 km covering 13 districts, i.e., Bhadrak, Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Angul, Sundergarh, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Debagarh, Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack, Khordha, Puri and Kendrapara & will connect major industrial clusters of Khurdha, Jharsuguda, Rourkela, Sambalpur, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Angul, Dhenkanal, Kalinganagar, Jajpur and Paradip.

GAIL also plans to provide PNG connections in the near future to adjacent Jeevan Bima Colony and Maitri Vihar Colony covering a total of 1,000 houses. Assessment is also being carried out for PNG supply to leading hotels, hospitals and industrial units of the city.