Indian Oil Corporation-Adani Energy combine, GAIL Gas and Indraprastha Gas were among the 26 companies that submitted bids for retailing CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households in six cities.
In all 51 bids from 26 entities were received for six cities offered by Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), an official said at the close of bidding for the third round of city gas distribution (CGD) round today.
Ludhiana was the most sought after with as many as 16 companies including GAIL Gas, IGL, IOC-Adani and Gujarat State Petroleum Corp-Engineers India combine bidding for it.
GSPC-EIL combine also bid for Jalandhar.
Jalandhar attracted 12 bids while Kutch East (Kandla) got 8, Asansol-Durgapur seven and Kutch West (Mundra) got four bids. Bhavnagar and Jamnagar in Gujarat got two bids each.
IOC-Adani combine bid for four cities - Kutch East and Kutch West, Ludhiana and Jalandhar. GAIL Gas, a subsidiary of state gas utility GAIL India, bid for Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Durgapur/Asansol and Kutch East.
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IGL submitted bid for two cities in Punjab - Ludhiana and Jalandhar.
The official said other companies who bid included the Indian unit of BG Group of UK.
PNGRB had in July last year invited bids for giving licences for retailing CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households in Asansol-Durgapur (in West Bengal), Bhavnagar, Kutch East, Kutch West and Jamnagar (all in Gujarat), Ludhiana and Jalandhar (in Punjab) and Panipat (in Haryana).
Panipat was later dropped from the list.
PNGRB has so far conducted two rounds of auctions but it has not issued licenses so far.
In March 2009, it conducted the first round for six cities - Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, Mathura and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, Kota in Rajasthan, Dewas in Madhya Pradesh and Sonepat in Haryana.
GAIL Gas swept the round bagging five cities. Bhagyanagar Gas, an equal joint venture of GAIL and Hindustan Petroleum, got the sixth city of Kakinada.
In the second round in August, PNGRB invited bids for seven cities, including Ghaziabad, Allahabad and Chandigarh.
Indraprastha Gas, which claimed it had central government and Supreme Court authorisation for retailing CNG and piped gas in Ghaziabad, challenged in the Delhi High Court the PNGRB's authority to issue licences.
The HC in January last year ruled that PNGRB had no powers to issue city gas authorisation, leading to scrapping of second round.