New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the Kochi- Mangalore Natural Gas Pipeline at Kochi tomorrow according to Manoj Jain, Chairman of GAIL India Limited.
The Kochi-Mangaluru natural gas pipeline is regarded as an important milestone towards the creation of ‘One Nation, One Gas Grid’. Prime Minister would inaugurate the pipeline at 11 am via video-conferencing.
Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan along with Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, would also be present during the occasion.
The plan is to distribute gas through domestic pipelines for domestic and commercial use. The 450-km pipeline has been built by GAIL (India) Limited. It has a transportation capacity of 12 million metric standard cubic metres per day and would carry natural gas from the Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) regasification terminal at Kochi (Kerala) to Mangalore (Karnataka) while passing through Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasaragod districts.
The overall cost of the project was nearly Rs 3,000 crore and its construction required over 12 lakh man-days of employment. The pipeline construction paused 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 would 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 would also supply natural gas to commercial and industrial units across the districts along the pipeline. The consumption of cleaner fuel would help in improving air quality.
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