JOIN USState to help GAIL's 2 projects
A decision to this effect was taken by the State Cabinet meeting on Thursday. Home Minister V S Acharya told reporters that subsidiary lines for lateral tapping along the 480 km stretch passing through the State has also been approved.
The pipelines when completed would help the Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Limited to switch over to gas from naptha, besides serving as a fuel link for the Bidadi plant. “Overall, there is a potential to generate 5,000 to 6,000 MW power,” the minister said.
The Dabhol-Bangalore and Kochi-Mangalore-Bangalore gas pipelines have been designed to carry 16 million metric cubic metres of gas per day, Acharya said. The Dabhol-Bangalore line passes through Ratnagiri and Kolhapur districts of Maharashtra and Belgaum, Dharwad, Davangere, Chitradurga, Tumkur and Bangalore districts of Karnataka, while the Kochi-Bangalore line will pass through Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
The State government and GAIL had signed the mutual cooperation agreement for the gas pipelines in April this year. The project is likely to be completed by 2012, Acharya said.
Meanwhile, the GAIL board approved an investment of Rs. 4543.43 crore for 1,389 km Dabhol – Bangalore pipeline project. The project will be implemented in two phases.
For the second project, 1,114 km Kochi – Kanjirkkod – Bengaluru – Mangalore pipeline, an investment of Rs. 3,032 crore has been approved. This project will be completed in two phases as well.
CMD, GAIL, Dr U D Choubey met Chief Secretary Sudhakar Rao on Thursday. During the meeting, the Chief Secretary assured of full support from the state Government for implementation of these pipeline projects.