Who inaugurated 2nd floating CNG station in Varanasi?

Daily Current Affairs

Kiren Rijiju

Hardeep Singh Puri

Piyush Goyal

S. Jaishankar

Correct Answer : Hardeep Singh Puri

Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Sunday (26th Nov 2023) inaugurated the city’s second floating compressed natural gas (CNG) mobile refueling unit (MRU) station at Ravidas Ghat, Varanasi and said it was a significant step towards viable sustainable energy solutions.

Earlier, Namo Ghat had a floating station for filling CNG in boats.

The decision to set-up this floating CNG stationis a testament to our belief in the transformative power of clean energy.

This will provide great convenience to boatmen as they will not have to go all the way to NaMo Ghat for refueling, thus saving time and money. On an average, it is estimated that each boatman can potentially save over Rs 36,000 per year by using CNG as fuel,” said the minister. Puri said CNG boats not only reduces pollution but also leads to savings as it is more efficient.

The boatmen are getting 35-40% more mileage due to replacement of old engines with efficient CNG engines (1 kg of CNG is energy equivalent to 1.39 litres of petrol and 1.18 litres of diesel), he said. Both the stations have been developed by GAIL (India) Limited.

With this, floating CNG stations are now operational on both sides of the main ghats of Varanasi. According to GAIL officials, the floating stations have been developed at a cost of Rs 17.5 crore.

The CNG mother station at Namo Ghat has been operational since December 2021. The new station is CNG MRU. CNG will be filled in cascades from Namo Ghat and transported by water ways to Ravidas Ghat for fueling boats. It has a capacity of 4,000 kg/day and can cater to 300 to 400 boats a day.

GAIL chairman and managing director, Sandeep Kumar Gupta, director (human resources), Ayush Gupta, director (marketing), Sanjay Kumar and a host of dignitaries were also present on the occasion.

Later, Puri also interacted with students at the Varanasi centre of GAIL Utkarsh, a CSR initiative of the company that provides all-expenses paid residential coaching to 60 girls from economically weaker sections to compete for engineering and medical entrance examinations..

Source : Times of India

Published On : November 27, 2023

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$102.92

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$50

$100

$200

$250

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