AGARTALA, July 8 (TIWN): Aiming to bring a new revolution to the household kitchens here in the capital city Agartala and to contain the excessive deforestation in rural Tripura; Tripura Natural Gas Company Ltd (TNGCL) has set a target of supplying piped natural gas (PNG) to 4, 000 new households by March 2015, said TNGCL Marketing (Head) Joyjeet Chaudhury. Talking to TIWN on Wednesday Chaudhury said, “Till the year 2015 we have targeted 4,000 households to be connected with the piped natural gas.” The TNGCL had already connected 17, 996 households with the PNG lines till March 31, 2015, he said. At the meantime TNGCL has also targeted to connect at least 10,000 households with the PNG lines by 2016, though Chaudhury said that it has not been confirmed yet. It is worthy to mention here that the Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) has recently sanctioned Rs. 7.03 crore for the extension of PNG network in and around the Tripura’s capital. The areas which were targeted to be brought under the coverage of piped natural gas lines are Agartala Bhati Abhoynagar, Ujjayn Abhoynagar, Shyamli Bazar, Indranagar, 79 Tilla, Circuit House and South Howrah. It is expected that after the existing Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders is replaced with PNG in the city, the cylinders can be distributed to the village areas where the women are still cooking in the mud Chulha using the fire woods. However, Chaudhury further added, “Though we have targeted to link 4,000 households by this year but we are not receiving enough applications and neither any response from the public.”

The new revolution to the household kitchens would also contain excessive deforestation in rural Tripura where the women and other members of the family still spend days and evening collecting fire woods.

Besides, household connections, TNGCL has already provided PNG connection to 300 commercial business centers and 47 factory units in the Bodhjungnagar industrial area on the outskirts of Agartala.

To cater the increasing number of CNG fueled vehicles,  TNGCL has already set up a mother CNG  refilling station at Udaipur and in this regard TNGCL is to set up 4 daughter boosters at Amarpur, Shantibazar, Belonia, and Sonamura, said TNGCL Manager S. Saha.

TNGCL is also planning to set up another Mother CNG station at Chandrapur near International Bus terminus and along with 3 daughter booster CNG stations also to be set up at Teliamura, Khowai and Bisalgarh. At present there are 5 CNG stations, 4 at Agartala and 1 at Udaipur.