Remaining 116 Delhi villages to get piped cooking gas by year-end: CM Gupta

New Delhi, May 15 (IANS) Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Thursday announced that the remaining 116 villages in the city without a piped cooking gas line will get the facility by the year-end, ensuring that all Delhi villages are covered under the scheme.

Earlier, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena and the CM virtually inaugurated PNG (Piped Natural Gas) supply to 111 villages at a ceremony in Dwarka.

CM Gupta said the piped gas connections in Delhi, under the second phase of extending gas pipeline facility to villages, mark a new chapter in the lives of all families in 111 villages.

“The 116 villages that are without a piped gas line will also get the facility by this year end,” she said, adding that a total 130 villages had got piped gas line in the first phase.

The CM announced that with the 111 villages getting piped gas on Thursday the total length of line has gone up to 13,000 km in the city.

“Piped gas supply is going to improve the health of women and protect the environment from pollution,” she said.

“As a homemaker I have also experienced problems related to sudden finishing of cooking gas in the LPG cylinder,” she said, adding that piped gas will end such problems in villages.

She said even small facilities were not available to the poor in the country till 2014 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to announce the cooking gas Ujjwala scheme from the ramparts of Red Fort.

Highlighting her government’s green initiatives Gupta also expressed her government’s resolve to install up to 3 lakh rooftop solar plant units and highlighted the recent introduction of 400 e-buses.

In his address, LG Saxena said he sorted out the problem of delayed no-objection certificate (NoC) for IGL for laying the gas pipeline for speedy expansion of the facility.

Earlier, Urban Development Minister Ashish Sood highlighted how the new facility would rid the villages and the city of polluting smoke emanating from some rural homes which were using conventional fuels like wood and coal for cooking.

“This is an example of CM Gupta’s resolve for implementing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for women empowerment and environment protection,” said Sood, calling it a historic event.

He said a UN survey shows that till 2022 as much as 30 per cent of the rural population in Delhi was dependent on smoke-emitting conventional sources of fuel for cooking.

--IANS

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