Kolkata, Feb. 13 -- Bengal Gas Company Limited, a joint venture of GAIL (India) Limited and Bengal's Greater Calcutta Gas Supply Corporation Limited, is hopeful of delivering piped gas to New Town by March 2026.

The internal pipeline at New Town is ready. The supply line will gradually be expanded to Garia via EM Bypass from New Town. The laying of the pipeline is also completed in the stretch between Chingrighata off EM Bypass and Garia.

The national gas grid, which connects Bengal with the rest of the country, has already reached Gayeshpur, near Kalyani, around 40 kilometres from Rajarhat.

Anupam Mukhopadhyay, CEO, Bengal Gas Company, said from Gayeshpur onwards it's the company's job to build the rest of the infrastructure and bring piped gas to Kolkata as part of its mandate to develop the gas distribution network in the city and in its adjoining districts of North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly and Nadia. The plan is to initially connect 5 lakh households.

"A City Gate Station (CGS) which is basically a pressure reduction unit is under construction and is expected to be completed by March. We will be able to charge our pipeline at this point," he added.

Mukhopadhyay explained that the CGS functions like sub-stations that manage voltages of electric supply.

"We are laying a pipeline along Kalyani Expressway. We expect to reach up to Barrackpore Ganges More in at least 6 months. We can do it faster but we need permission from West Bengal Highway Development Corporation. If we get that soon, we will be able to execute the job at a greater pace," said Mukhopadhyay.

He added that from there onwards to Barasat, the pipeline is already laid. The pending patches are along the Kalyani Expressway and from Barasat to the Airport (from Barasat to Airport, permission from the Public Works Department is needed). If permissions are granted, we hope gas will reach New Town in a year.

Once clearance comes, it takes around 6 to 7 months for us to lay around a 10 km stretch,"

he claimed.

The project involves laying a pipeline of a total of 795 km at an investment of

Rs 5,322 crore.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.