Thursday, Dec 12, 2002
Thursday, Dec 12, 2002 |
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New Delhi
By Our Staff Reporter
With the commissioning of this 12-inch diameter pipeline, laid from Dhaula Kuan to G.T. Karnal Road at a cost of Rs 25 crores, IGL will be able to move gas to different parts of West and North-West Delhi, reduce the pressure and queues on the CNG stations located in other parts of the city, and cut down on "dead mileage'' of vehicles going for refuelling. Mr Naik said that as a result of the directions passed by the Supreme Court in march 2001, pressure on the CNG dispensing infrastructure had increased manifold and with conversion of vehicles to CNG mode taking pace at a faster pace than the dispensing infrastructure, long queues were witnessed. This, he said, happened because Delhi sought to do in nine months what took five years in other countries. The Minister lauded IGL for providing Delhi an almost queue- free dispensing stage now by increasing the number of stations from 68 in March 2001 to 101 now and compression capacity from 2 lakh kg per day to 9.65 lakh kg per day. As against 26,100 vehicles in March 2001, he said, the infrastructure -- which so far has cost Rs 341 crores -- was now catering to 74,000 vehicles. And this includes the largest fleet of city buses -- comprising 7,200 full buses and 4,000 mini-buses -- in the world. Consequently, Mr.Naik, several countries such as Nigeria, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Iran have shown an inclination to take consultancy from India for implementing similar gas-based transportation projects. Mr Naik informed that IGL would increase the number of stations to 110 and raise the total compression capacity to 16.1 lakh kg per day at an additional expenditure of Rs 181 crores by June 2003. Taking credit for "improvement in air quality'' in Delhi, the Minister said this has happened due to a combined mix of increased use of CNG, reduction in sulphur content in diesel from 0.25 per cent to 0.05 per cent in March 2001, reduction in benzene content in petrol to one per cent and mandatory switch over to Bharat Stage II vehicular emission norms. As per a study by the Central Road Research Institute, Mr Naik said, 85 per cent improvement in air quality in Delhi is due to improvements made in petrol and benzene and the remaining due to use of CNG in public transport. This, he noted, was because the percentage of CNG vehicles to all vehicles in Delhi was less than 4 per cent. While none of the Ministers of the Delhi Government attended the programme and the Congress MLA and Corporator stayed away, the BJP MP from Outer Delhi and Labour Minister, Sahib Singh Verma, attended along with Delhi's Lieutenant-Governor, Vijai Kapoor, and the Union Minister for State of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Santosh Gangwar. Mr Kapoor asserted that the issue of environment was related to employment. Asserting that employment generation should continue, he opined that for preserving environment, better fuel quality was needed. He also pointed to how minimising problems -- which related to laying the pipeline along Ring Road, through Defence area and inside residential colonies -- had proved to be a major challenge and delayed the project. But he hoped that with greater CNG supply and introduction of Delhi Metro, air quality will further improve in Delhi.
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