Gas Authority of India limited (GAIl) has entered into an agreement with Jharkhand on Thursday for supplying natural gas for industrial as well as domestic purposes in the State. The gaseous form of fuel which is considered less polluting would be supplied through Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Rancih-Angul pipelines under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Urja Ganga’ project.
Most important contribution of the pipeline would come to the shut down Sindri fertilizer plant which is on its way of revival. Also, steel plants of SAIl at Bokaro and Tata Steel at Jamshedpur, CCl and JSPl plants would also be benefited with the cheaper and cleaner fuel source.
“The Jagdishpur-Haldia pipeline would cross for 315 kilometers in Jharkhand out of which 173 kms would be main line and rest 142 would be spurline. The pipeline would cover six districts of the State namely Hazaribagh, Bokaro, Giridih, Dhanbad, Ranchi and East Singhbhum,” Chairman and Managing Director of GAIl BC Tripathi said. Entire length of the pipeline is 1850 kms.
The second line ‘Bokaro-Ranchi-Angul’ is of 150 km long in the State and would be build on PPP mode, also a first for GAIl. The pipeline would cover four districts that include Ranchi, Khunti, Gumla and Simdega. GAIl has already invited expression of interest for the project.
“The Jagdishpur-Haldia pipeline would create a kind of gas circuit for Jharkhand that would supply natural gas to big and small industrial agglomerations of Jamshedpur, Bokaro, Sindri and Ranchi. This would include Sindri for which bid finalization would complete by next month and it is expected that fertilizer plant would be revived by 2018. With all these positives and demands from other steel and power plants and also from smaller industries we think it would be viable for GAIl. We are expecting to complete the pipeline by 2019,” the CMD informed The Pioneer.
Besides supplying methane-propane- butane rich natural gas to major and minor industries of the State the pipeline would supply piped fuel to houses at Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad, Sindri and Bokaro for cooking purposes.
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