Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is expected to inaugurate LPG bottling plants in Banka and East Champaran through videoconferencing on Sunday, September 13, 2020.
According to ETenergyworld.com, one of the plants belonged to Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and located in Banka while the other owned by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) is located in East Champaran.
The two plants have a combined bottling capacity of 80,000 cylinders per day.
The Banka plant will serve Bhagalpur, Banka, Jamui, Araria, Kishanganj and Katihar districts in Bihar and Godda, Deoghar, Dumka, Sahibganj and Pakur districts in the neighbouring Jharkhand.
Similarly, the East Champaran plant will serve over 5 lakh consumers in East Champaran, West Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Siwan, Gopalganj and Sitamarhi in Bihar and Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh.
The Banka plant has cost Rs131.75 crore ($131.75million) and the East Champaran one Rs136.4 crore ($136million).
The two plants were envisaged under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUJ).
“In Bihar, 84.91 lakh PMUJ connections have been given at a cost of Rs1,366 crore provided by the government of India since May 2016.
The LPG coverage in Bihar has increased from 25.50% of the total households in April 2014 to 76.9% by August this year.
As a result, total active domestic LPG consumers have increased from 51.2 lakh in April 2014 to 180 lakh at present,” said Vibhash Kumar, executive director of Indian Oil, Bihar and state coordinator of Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) in the state.
“Improvement in LPG bottling infrastructure has enabled oil companies to serve LPG consumers in remote places of Bihar. These plants have also created direct and indirect employment opportunities for about 1,000 people in nearby rural areas,” he added.
At present, there are 13 bottling plants in Bihar run by IOCL, HPCL and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL).
The per day bottling capacity in the state has increased from 98,000 cylinders in April 2016 to 2.58 lakh cylinders per day at present.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com