RIL arm set to supply gas to 52 cities one of them in Nashik city

RIL, which is set to become the single-largest gas producer in the country once its Krishna-Godavari gas hits full production, may also become the largest gas distributor soon with operations in 52 major cities. Reliance Gas Corporation (RGCL), a subsidiary of RIL, has emerged as the sole entity to submit expression of interest (EoI) for these cities. The company would have an exclusivity over gas distribution in these cities for five years as per the gas distribution policy. RIL’s city-gas business is backed by its claim that the price of the piped gas it would supply would be cheaper by one-third (33%) the price of conventional cooking gas (liquefied petroleum gas) supplied in cylinders. Responding to queries at the India Economic Summit 2006, RIL chairman & managing director Mukesh Ambani said: “Our gas would cost one-third less than that of LPG .” Consumers today enjoy a subsidy of more than Rs 300 per cylinder of cooking gas. So far, the downstream regulator has received EoIs for 59 cities, with interests of RIL and Gail overlapping in only two cases — Ghaziabad and Gwalior. The list of 52 cities where RIL is the sole interested party includes Noida, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Navi Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Chennai, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Surat, Nasik, Agra, Jaipur and Coimbatore.