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Oil regulator PNGRB has invited bids for issuing licenses for retailing CNG and piped cooking gas in 14 cities including Bengaluru, Pune and Amritsar.
The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) said last date of bidding for development of city gas distribution networks in 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 on February 11, 2014.
Bid documents will be sold from October 15 till February 4, 2014 and bidding will close at 12 noon on February 11, 2014, it said. Bidders have been 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 have also been 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 cities offered for bidding include those that PNGRB had offered in the fourth CGD round in September 2010.
The regulator had however the round in November 2011. PNGRB had in the fourth round offered licenses for Ernakulam in Kerala; Rangareddy/Medak, Nalgonda and Khammam in Andhra Pradesh; Alibag/Pen and Lonavala/Khapoli in Maharashtra; Guna in Madhya Pradesh and Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
To accelerate deployment of the CGD network in the country, PNGRB had invited bids in 2009 for 13 cities in first two rounds.
GAIL Gas Ltd walked away with four of the six cities offered in round one.
It won Sonepat in Haryana, Dewas in Madhya Pradesh, Meerut in Uttar Pradesh and Kota in Rajasthan while Bhagyanagar Gas Ltd got Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh and DSM Infratech Mathura in Uttar Pradesh.
In round two, Indian Oil Corp-Adani Group combine walked away with Allahabad and Chandigarh ,while Reliance Gas got Rajahmundry, Shahdol and Yanam in Andhra Pradesh. Jhansi went to Central UP Gas Ltd. The third round of bidding was opened in July 2010 and concluded in February 2011 (after extension), but final awards of most cities are yet to be made because of certain litigation involving PNGRB and a few other parties.
City-based Jay Madhok Energy won rights to Jalandhar city, according to PNGRB.
