Current Affairs National

Category : National

Five central oil PSUs – IOCL, ONGC, GAIL, OIL, and NRL have signed agreement for executing 1500 Km North-East Natural Gas Pipeline Grid. It is a major initiative to connect all North-East States to National Gas Grid. It will be implemented under Centre’s ambitious Urja Ganga Gas Pipeline Project.

Terms of Agreement Joint Venture (JV) company will be formed to develop, build, operate and maintain Natural Gas Pipeline Grid connecting Guwahati to other major North -Eastern cities and major load centres such as Numaligarh Refinery and integrating it with feasible gas producing fields in the region. The JV company will have equal equity contribution from all partners for development of natural gas pipeline project. The project will connect state capitals of all eight North Eastern states- Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. The expenditure for 1500 Km length gas pipeline project is Rs. 6000 crore and is scheduled to compete in four years (by 2022) in three phases.

Urja Ganga Gas Pipeline Project The project was launched in October 2016 with an aim to provide piped cooking (PNG) gas to residents of eastern region of the country and CNG gas for the vehicles. The project envisaged laying 2,050-km pipeline connecting Jagdishpur (UP) to Haldia (West Bengal) by 2018. It covers five states including UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha. The project is being implemented by state-run gas utility GAIL.