Ahmedabad: Torrent Gas, a subsidiary of Torrent group, has hailed the Supreme Court judgement that upholds authorisation by Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) to the company for creating City Gas Distribution network in Chennai and Tiruvallur.

Appeal filed against authorisation by Adani Gas was dismissed by the apex court on Monday.

Executive Director of Gujarat based torrent group Jayesh Desai today said that Torrent Gas, was authorized by the PNGRB, pursuant to an international competitive bidding process on 7th September, 2018, to lay the City Gas Distribution (CGD) infrastructure to provide Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Piped Natural Gas (PNG) in the Districts of Chennai and Tiruvallur in the State of Tamil Nadu.

This authorisation by PNGRB was challenged by Adani Gas Limited on the ground that the bid of Torrent Gas was unreasonably high and PNGRB ought to have rejected the bid. The SC vide its judgement in Civil Appeal Number 3992/2019, dated 17th February 2020 has held that the power to determine the reasonability of the bids resides solely with the PNGRB by virtue of Clause 14.2 of the Bid Document and that PNGRB’s determination on reasonability was neither arbitrary nor violating the principles of natural justice. All contentions of the plaintiff petitioners were rejected, and their appeals against the PNGRB’s award dismissed, he said.

This judgement clears the deck for laying CGD infrastructure in Chennai and Tiruvallur, which is the only metro region in the country where CGD infrastructure doesn’t exist as on date. Torrent Gas is committed to building a robust and efficient CGD network and making CNG and PNG widely available to the citizens of Chennai and Tiruvallur districts, he added.

Notably, Torrent Group, with revenues of Rs. 21,000 crores (USD 3 billion), has a strong presence in Pharmaceuticals, Power and City Gas Distribution (CGD) sectors.
Torrent Gas, the Group’s CGD business, is one of the leading CGD companies in the country and has been authorised for 16 GAs covering 32 districts across 7 States (Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Telangana) and 1 U.T. (Puducherry). Torrent’s authorised areas have a total population of over 9 crore people, which is around 7% of the total population of India.

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