The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has commenced the process of laying the 1108 kms long marathon pipeline which will pass through Chhattisgarh for evacuation of Paradip refinery products to Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand States.
The public sector oil marketing major will soon have round-the-clock surveillance for its project sides in Chhattisgarh for the Paradip-Raipur-Ranchi pipeline, official sources informed.
The mega project consists of laying of 1108 km long product pipeline with intermediate pumping stations at Jatni and New Sambalpur and delivery stations at Jatni, Jharsuguda, Ranchi, Raipur and Korba.
In March last year, the Chhattisgarh Government decided to prepare a Master Plan within a year to identify end-users for utilising natural gas to be made available from a pipeline originating from Surat in Gujarat till Paradip harbour in Odhisha while passing through parts of Chhattisgarh, officials stated.
It would also prepare a plan on the utility value of gas for the local populace and State Government. A project will be prepared for the usage of natural gas as fuel for industrial units, they stated.
The Central Government has already started laying of the natural gas pipeline from Surat in Gujarat to Paradip Harbour in Odisha. The gas pipeline will pass through Rajnandgaon, Durg, Raipur and Mahasamund districts in Chhattisgarh.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was also signed between Indian Oil Corporation limited (IOCl) and Chhattisgarh State Industrial Development Corporation (C.S.I.D.C.) at the Mantralaya in Naya Raipur.
Notably, in January last year, Chhattisgarh was also included in the Centre’s mega pipeline project for the supply of piped natural gas.
This was for the first time that the State has been included in the massive gas grid already operational in several states of the country.
The Centre has provided approval to the project which is expected to go on stream during the current financial year, Chief Minister Raman Singh had informed while chairing a meeting of departmental secretaries in the Mantralaya.
Singh had stated that the gas pipeline would pass from the State through Rajnandgaon to Mahasamund and onwards into neighbouring Odisha State.
He said that the pipeline would also cover the industrial city of Korba.
Singh had demanded from the Centre that the project provide maximum advantage to the households and industrial units in Chhattisgarh.
Notably, Chhattisgarh has achieved considerable success with use of bio gas for cooking and home lighting purposes in the remote rural pockets such as insurgency infested Bastar region.
For instance, as many as 3604 bio-gas plants have come up in the insurgency infested Kanker district in Bastar during the past more than 14 years, officials informed.
The plants have been established under the National Bio Gas and Manure Management Programme. The bio gas plants not only work as fuel for cooking, the units also illuminate homes at night.
Women and children in the villages now no longer go to the forest in search of fuel wood. The move had also helped reduce pollution, they stated.Moreover, as per 2013-14 Annual Report of the Union Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Chhattisgarh commissioned Biomass Power and Bagasse Co-Generation projects with a cumulative capacity of 264.90 MW last year.
The Biomass Power and Bagasse Co-Generation Programme aims at efficient utilization of biomass such as Agro residue in the form of stalks, stems and straw; agro-industrial residues such as shells, husks, deoiled cakes and wood from dedicated energy plantations for power generation, it stated
The potential for power generation from agricultural and Agro-industrial residues in the country is estimated at about 17,000 MW, it stated.
With progressive higher steam temperature, pressure and efficient project configuration in new sugar mills and modernization of existing ones, the potential of surplus power generation through bagasse co-generation of sugar mills is estimated at 5,000 MW, the report stated.