MGL to spend Rs500cr ($83m) on CGD
Mahanagar Gas (MGL) has laid out plans to spend Rs500cr ($83m) this fiscal to expand its city gas distribution network in Mumbai.
"MGL has yet to cover the entire city," admits a senior company source. "Many new areas and townships in and around Mumbai are coming up (in Panvel, Kharghar, Ulwe, Dronagiri, Kalamboli, Kamothe and Pushpak Nagar).
There are plenty of areas where we can grow." MGL is arranging the Rs500cr ($83m) from its own finances. On the drawing board are plans for 30 new CNG filling stations to add to more than 200 it has already and to connect 150,000 homes with piped gas adding to the roughly 900,000 homes it has connected already.
"Last year we added 110,000 homes," we hear. "Probably it was the highest number of domestic connections added in the country in one year." MGL's main challenge will be securing land to set up CNG stations in pricey Mumbai and local authority permission to lay pipelines.
"Municipal bodies in Mumbai don't let us work for four months during the monsoon season (from June to September)," we hear. MGL sold on average 2.75m cm/d this fiscal.
Next year it expects this to rise to 2.9m cm/d.
