Cabinet approves North East Natural Gas Pipeline Grid

On January 8, 2020, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved the North East Gas Pipeline Grid. The pipeline is to be constructed for around 1,656 km.

Highlights

The gas pipeline grid is to be developed in eight states of the North East Region namely Manipur, Meghalaya, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Sikkim, Nagaland and Tripura. The project is a joint venture of 5 Public sector units namely ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited), IOCL (Indian Oil Corporation Limited), OIL (Oil India Limited), GAIL (Gas Authority of India Limited) and NRL (Numaligarh Refinery Limited). The Joint Venture has been named IGGL (Indra Dhanush Gas Grid Limited).

The Government of India has approved Rs 5,559 crores funding for the construction of the grid. The grid will connect major cities of the North East namely Guwahati, Itanagar, Kohima, Dimapur, Aizwal, Imphal, Shillong, Agartala, Silchar, Numaligarh and Gangtok.

About the Grid

The Grid will supply CNG to automobiles, cooking gas to households and fuel to industry. The Group Consortium will receive 60% of the funding for the project and the rest has to be raised via debts and equity. The project will be monitored by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The Ministry will also release capital for the project in further stages.

Month: Current Affairs - January, 2020