Bhubaneswar: Vice President Venkaiah Naidu is scheduled to dedicate the Rs 103 crore state-of-the-art LPG bottling plant at Barkani village in Bolangir, December 27.
Regional LPG manager (Eastern Region) Atul Kumar told the media here that Governor Ganeshi Lal, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, local MPs and MLAs are also scheduled to grace the inaugural function.
Kumar said the plant set up by the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) will be made operational soon after the inauguration.
The plant, once commissioned, shall supply LPG cylinders to consumers in 14 districts—Bolangir, Jharsuguda, Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Baragarh, Kalahandi, Sonepur, Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Boudh, Kandhamal, Rayagada and Nuapada.
He said the plant is spread over 23 acres and have the capacity to produce 42 lakh cylinders per year.
The plant will house facilities like 24 station electronic carousel, fire water tanks of 1853kl capacity each, filling and filled shed, eight bank tank lorry decantation gantry and 3x300MT mounded stage vessels.
He added that the foundation stone for the plant was laid by Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dahrmendra Pradhan and Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot May 21, 2018. This is the second LPG bottling plant of BPCL in Odisha after the one in Khurda.
Oil marketing companies, at present, have LPG bottling plants at Balasore, Jharsuguda, Khurda and Jatni. The Oil marketing companies have planned to set up new plants at Khurda and Rayagada.
The bottling capacity of the plants in state which was 1.48 crore cylinder in 2014 went up to 2.96 crore in 2019. The capacity of bottling will go up to 4.06 crore after the completion of all the seven bottling plants.
Kumar said the number of LPG consumers in Odisha was 20.22 lakh in 2014 and it went up to 88.10 lakh in 2019 which is an increase of customer base by 335.71 per cent during the last five years.
He said the demand for packed LPG in state was 454.3 Thousand Metric Tons (TMT) last year. It is expected to rise to 610TMT by the end of 2020.
The LPG penetration in Odisha which was 20 per cent in 2014 increased to 81.3 per cent by 2019, an increase of 61.3 per cent.
With the growing demand for LPG in the state particularly in the western and southwestern Odisha, the need for setting up a new bottling plant was felt and Bolangir was chosen for the purpose considering its logistics advantage.