Oil regulator PNGRB has invited bids for issuing licences for retailing CNG and piped cooking gas in 20 cities like Haridwar and Aligarh.
The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board said that April 23 is the last date of bidding 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.
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.
This will be 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. These were 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 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.
