HPCL to boost pipeline gas connection to North-east cities households in recent financial year

New Delhi: Oil major PSU, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) is going to initiate the distribution of domestic piped natural gas (PNG) connections in the Siliguri sub-division by March 2026 where in first phase gas connections will be provided to around 500 households. The target is to cover nearly 3,000 households in the first phase of the project, according to official. The rollout of the initiative was done by Anuj Kumar, a senior project engineer of the HP City Gas Distribution Project at the PNG Drive 2.0 awareness programme. He stated that the rollout would begin from Bagdogra and would later be extended to Matigara, Shivmandir and Atharokhai in the northwest of the city.

The state-run company has already developed the infrastructure to provide almost 2,500 domestic gas connections in the outskirts of Jalpaiguri town which includes Patkata Colony where the service was launched on Friday and Paharpur and Arabinda panchayats, where it will be soon introduced. HPCL will further provide compressed natural gas (CNG) in North Bengal for vehicles across the cities like Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, and North Dinajpur districts. The company as per the officials is investing around Rs 1,700 crore in these three districts to develop natural gas infrastructure which will reportedly help to reduce carbon emissions and maintain ecological balance. The pipeline structure is currently under developing in civic areas of Siliguri. The initial target is to lay pipelines across nearly 50km as per sources. Further, the officials added that around 60% of the pipeline-laying work in civic areas has been completed and aims to provide domestic gas connections within the next couple of months.