Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited is setting up a LPG Bottling Plant at Rayagada

OdishaLIVE Bureau

Foundation stone laying of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), a Navaratna PSU under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas is setting up a LPG Bottling Plant at IID Center, Rayagada in Odisha State. HPCL is presently having a LPG Bottling Plant at Jatni in Khurda District.The new plant to be constructed at Rayagada, will be the second LPG Bottling Plant of HPCL in the State of Odisha. Oil Marketing Companies are having LPG Bottling Plants at Balasore, Jharsuguda, Khurda and Jatni. The current bottling capacity of these 4 plants is 2.80 Crores cylinders per annum. In addition to the proposed LPG Bottling Plant at Rayagada, Oil Marketing Companies have plans to set up new plants at Bhubaneswar and Balangir. With the commissioning of three new LPG Bottling Plants, Odisha will have a total of 7 LPG Bottling Plants. The bottling capacity of these 7 bottling plants will be about 4.06 crores cylinders per annum.

A press meet jointly organized today in Bhubaneswar by HPCL and East Coast Railway was addressed by Sri Dharmendra Behura, Deputy General Manager, LPG Region, Bhubaneswar, HPCL, Sri Anil Kumar Tripathy, Chief Plant Manager, Jatni, LPG Bottling Plant, HPCL, Sri Trupti Ranjan Sahu, Senior Manager (Marketing), HPCL and Sri Nirakar Das, Senior Public Relations Officer, East Coast Railway.

The foundation stone laying of Rayagada LPG Bottling Plant is taking place on 19^th February 2019 by Shri. Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon’ble Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, in the august presence of Shri JhinaHikaka, Honourable MP (LokSabha), Koraput and ShriLalBihariHimirika, Honourable MLA, Rayagada.

There has been a significant growth of LPG in the state of Odisha, the LPG consumer base of 20.22 lakh as on 1.6.2014 has grown up to 76.65 lakhs as on 1.2.2019, an increase 279.1% during this period. The demand for packed LPG in Odisha was 3.2 Crores cylinder last year which is expected to be 4.3 Crores cylinder by 2020.

HPCL has 26.64 lakhs customers as on 1.2.2019 and consume about 1.3 Crores cylinders in a year. This consumption is expected to increase to 1.6 Crores cylinders by 2020. With the LPG demand growing in the State particularly in the Western and South-western Odisha, need for putting up a new bottling plant was felt and the historical town of Rayagada was chosen for locating the plant considering the logistics advantage of the location.

The LPG Plant at Rayagada will be constructed at IID Center, Rayagada which is around 5 KMs from Rayagada Railway station. The plant will be spread over 21 acres and will have the capacity of filling 42 lakh cylinders per year. The plant is expected to be operational by September 2020.

Rayagada Plant,once commissioned shall be supplying LPG cylinders to the consumers in 11 districts of Odisha namely: Balangir, Kalahandi, Sonepur,Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangapur, Boudh, Gajapati, Kandhamal, Rayagada and Nuapada.The Rayagada LPG Bottling plant will play a major role in catering to the massive increase in demand of LPG from 1.06 Lakhs/Month in 2014 to 2.06 Lakhs/Month in 2019, in these 11 Districts.