10,000 New PNG Connections for Every District

Vijayawada: Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has sought an action plan to provide piped natural gas (PNG) connection to every house in the state.

At a review meeting the CM held here on Monday on supply of LPG and the crop loss due to untimely rainfall, officials informed him that the state has the capacity to expand PNG connections to 2.34 lakh dwelling units/ establishments. At present, they were providing only 60,000 connections across districts.

The CM called for full usage of the existing capacity and fixed a target to give 10,000 new PNG connections for each district.

He asked the officials to write to the concerned Union minister to revive the Srikakulam-Kakinada pipeline. Officials, he said, must issue orders to the AP City Gas Distribution Network to start issuing fresh PNG connections to the consumers.

The CM advised the framing of a Natural Gas Policy for the commercial sector at the next AP cabinet meeting.

Referring to the LPG crisis, Naidu said the state must utilise the opportunity provided by the energy sector by promoting the use of induction stoves and electronic cockers as an alternative resource for LPG besides PNG.

Naidu called for priority supply of commercial LPG cylinders to educational institutions, hospitals, anganwadi centres, Anna canteens and hotels.

The officials informed the CM that they were supplying 1.80 lakh domestic LPG cylinders per day in the last five days across districts, and noted that the state was having 14,444 metric tonnes of gas reserves at present.

On loss of crops due to the untimely rainfall, the CM reviewed the situation based on preliminary information and called for a report on crop loss by March 26. Officials, he said, must pay more attention to crop management and alternate crops as the agriculture sector was having its share of 40% in GSDP and the production has increased by 71%.

Naidu said the usage of AI helped increase the number of devotees taking darshan at Tirumala and reduce the long queue lines and rush of devotees. The waiting period had come down and there was a 20 per cent rise in the number of devotees taking additional darshans.

He said that both the darshan and prasadam at Tirumala were good and the devotees were content with these.

On the setting up of a modern food testing lab at Tirumala, Naidu said the quality of ingredients being used to make laddus and also their nutritional value were being checked. He ruled out any chance of adulteration of laddu.

He called upon the other departments also to pay due attention to AI integration for public services and instructed them to take quick decisions by availing devices like internet of things (IoT), sensors and CCTV cameras. He also felt the need to use drones for farming in order to enhance production and called for a study in the neighbouring states on usage of drones.

The Chief Minister wanted efforts on the part of officials to increase the bandwidth in the state and called for government departments to use AWARE and data to get the best results.