Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL) has initiated a major drive to replace gas meters at every household as a safety measure. This fiscal it will incur around Rs 3.5 crore towards it, but in the years to come, the preventive maintenance expenditure will increase tremendously.

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“Till now we have replaced 13,500 gas meters in Mumbai and the target for this year is a total of 30,000 gas meters,” said an MGL official.

However, only those meters that have completed 15 years of service life (which is the optimum service life of equipment) are being replaced.

Whereas, during the routine annual maintenance, even those gas meters found faulty are being changed.

As part of this year’s expenditure towards replacing the gas meters, MGL has marked Rs 3.5 crore.

“We are a 20 years old company. During the initial years, there were very few Piped Natural Gas connections. As the years progressed, the connections too increased. Therefore, this activity of replacing the old gas meters has been started and will continue gradually,” added another official.

Therefore, next year, around 70,000 gas meters will be replaced, for which MGL will be spending around Rs 7.75 to Rs 8 crore. The replacement is being provided free of cost to the consumers.

In Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai, there are a total of 9 lakh connections in households and increasing.

For those who are worried about non-availability of food at home, “The replacement activity is undertaken after prior permission of the society and intimation to the concerned members. The activity is not time-consuming and gas is not stopped for a long period. Therefore, the question of non-availability of gas does not arise,” added the MGL official.