After a steep rise in petrol prices last month, price of compressed natural gas (CNG) in Delhi and surrounding areas has gone up.
Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL), a joint venture of GAIL (India) Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Delhi government, the monopoly seller in the country, on Saturday announced 17 per cent increase of 50-55 paise a kilogram in CNG rate.
This is the third rise since January. In April, the prices were increased by 30 paise.
The company said increased price of regassified-lequified natural gas (RLNG) had required a “correction in prices”. Of a total of around 3.4 million standard cubic metre a day (mscmd), IGL meets about 20-25 per cent of it requirement from RLNG.
The new consumer price of Rs 29.8 a kg in Delhi and Rs 33.4 a kg in Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad would be effective from June 5. This means an increase of 50 paise in the consumer price of CNG in Delhi and 55 paise per kg in the consumer price of CNG in Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad.
Explaining the revision in price, IGL Managing Director Rajesh Vedvyas said despite full utilisation of the allotted administered price mechanism (APM) and Krishna Godavari (KG) D6 gas, IGL needs to source costly R-LNG from the spot market to meet rising demand, which has contributed to higher cost of sourcing the gas. He said this would have marginal impact on the running cost of CNG vehicles.Vedvyas said in a statement that despite the aforesaid prices increase, CNG would still offer 66 per cent savings towards the running cost when compared to petrol-driven vehicles at the current level of prices. When compared to diesel-driven vehicles, the economics in favour of CNG at revised price would be 21 per cent.