By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate the Kochi – Mangaluru Natural Gas Pipeline to the nation on January 5 at 11 AM via video conferencing. The event marks an important milestone towards the creation of ‘One Nation One Gas Grid’. Governors and Chief Ministers of Karnataka and Kerala, along with Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel will also be present on the occasion.
The 450 km long pipeline has been built by GAIL (India) Ltd. It has transportation capacity of 12 Million Metric Standard Cubic Metres per day, and will carry natural gas from the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Regasification Terminal at Kochi (Kerala) to Mangaluru (Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka), while passing through Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasaragod districts. The total cost of the project was about Rs. 3000 crore and its construction created over 12 lakh man-days of employment. Laying of the pipeline was an engineering challenge as the route of the pipeline necessitated it to cross water bodies at more than 100 locations. This was done through a special technique called Horizontal Directional Drilling method.
The pipeline will supply environment friendly and affordable fuel in the form of Piped Natural Gas (PNG) to households and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) to the transportation sector. It will also supply Natural Gas to commercial and industrial units across the districts along the pipeline. Consumption of cleaner fuel will help in improving air quality by curbing air pollution.
