GAIL plays it safe on pipeline project

Kochi: The efforts taken by the state government to push the land acquisition process for the pipeline project to carry LNG from the Puthuvypin terminal are making little progress with GAIL, which has a bitter experience in the past, is yet to give a signal that it was willing to move in tandem.  

“The state government has activated the mechanism to get the right of use for the project from the land-owners,” government sources said. “Sub-collectors of the areas through which the project passes have been appointed as nodal officers. Village officers and municipal officials have also been sounded about the immediacy of the project. It is now for the GAIL to come forward and restart their work.”

GAIL, which had taken up the project in right earnest immediately after the terminal was commissioned in 2012, is now fighting shy of making fast-forward movements as it had had to cancel the contracts it had awarded to lay the pipeline thanks to the state government’s lackadaisical approach. GAIL now refuses to share the urgency the government shows now.

“GAIL now says it will take at least six months to restart the project, which is unacceptable to the state government,” the sources said.

GAIL, on its part, has taken to steps to lower the pipes which have already been placed at certain locations. “Pipes for about 30 km have been welded and placed at different places in Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad and Kasaragod,” GAIL sources said. “We will now give the contract to agencies to lower them in those locations.” As for the rest of the work, a decision has to be taken at the corporate level, the sources said.

It is understood that Chief Minister Oommen Chandy will take up the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the latter had expressed his disappointment with the little progress in the Rs 5,000 crore project.