Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan told reporters that this decision of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) would help produce 14 million additional cylinders of liquefied petroleum gas in the country.

The project in Gujarat would have a foreign exchange component of Rs 27.72 crore. According to June 1995 prices, the project was estimated to cost Rs 333.40 crore. The project cost was subsequently revised as per March 1999 prices.

The project, expected to be completed in three years, would enable the country to save Rs 120 crore annually in foreign exchange, Mahajan said.

The plant would get the gas from State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC's) oil fields at Gandhar in Bharuch district.

The throughput capacity of the gas processing unit was estimated to be five million metric cubic metres per day (MMSCMD) of non-associated and associated gas.

The Rs 361.37-crore project of Gas Authority of India Limited will have a gas compression unit, Liquefied Petroleum Gas unit, utilities and offsite, product storage and despatch.