22-02-09 To prevent gas supply disruptions in case of eventualities, the city will be linked to the Dahej-Uran-Dabhol gas pipeline to present an alternative.
U.D. Choubey, Chairman and Managing Director of Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), said in order to take care of any eventuality like the recent strike of officials from the oil marketing companies (OMCs) which could result in disruption of gas supplies, they had cleared a plan to extend the Dahej-Uran-Dabhol gas pipeline to Mumbai to present an alternative.

The work on connecting the pipeline to the city at Trombay would be completed in around nine months' time and would create a 100 % back up in case of disruptions. He was speaking on the sidelines of a function held to launch the supply of piped natural gas (PNG) in South Mumbai and the Petroleum Conservation Research Association's (PCRA) nationwide fuel conservation awareness campaign.
R.S. Pandey, Secretary, Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said the total estimated underrecoveries (for the OMCs) would be around 1.05 lakh crore for the financial year 2008-9 and the figure was likely to somewhat vary. He added that when oil prices were at their peak, the under recoveries were estimated at around Rs 2.45 lakh crore.

Of the figure of Rs 1.05 lakh crore, Rs 32,000 crore would be met by upstream companies like GAIL, Oil India Limited (OIL) and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), and the balance as oil bonds, some of which had been issued by the Government and rest would be estimated and given after the financial year was over and the audit was conducted.
Choubey said GAIL was investing Rs 20,000 crore in five pipeline projects in two phases, of which the first had commenced and the second would start in two years time. As part of its plans to enhance its City Gas Distribution (CGD) network, the Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL) plans to increase the number of domestic gas customers to 10 lakh from the existing 4 lakh and the number of vehicles running on CNG from 2 lakh to 4 lakh.

Choubey said they had identified 50 cities on the pipeline network for extending the CGD network in two years, and the regulatory board would specify which of these cities would be taken up first (for the implementation).
Union Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said they were trying to get more ethanol for mixing in fuel. Anil Kakodkar, Secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy and the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, suggested that Mumbai could have a convenient system of biodegradable solid waste being collected and processed to generate gas, which could then be piped by the MGL. This would help generate extra energy.

Kakodkar said large cities like Mumbai had a huge problem of solid waste management which included its transport and land fill sites which needed a large area. A good part of solid waste was bio-degradable and technology for its bio- degradation and conversion to gas was available. If this was done in a decentralized manner, there would be no problem of transporting solid waste.
In Anushaktinagar, they had managed to create such a project which processed the kitchen waste of a hostel to produce gas and this met around half of the requirement of the kitchen.

Replicating this in Mumbai would also help save on the health management budget as it would contain bacterial pollution due to decay of bio-degradable waste.
Speaking at the function earlier, Pandey had spoken about the need for energy conservation and pointed to how Japan, which imports almost 100 % of its oil requirements had embarked on conservation measures after the oil shock in the 1970s.