GAIL plans to build smart villages along Jagdishpur-Haldia pipeline.

GAIL is engaging with local communities early on and planning to build 'smart villages' along its proposed Jagdishpur-Haldia pipeline to ensure the project does not suffer the same fate as its Kochi-Bengaluru-Mangaluru pipeline, which has been stuck for years as the company has been unable to obtain right of way from most landowners.

The state-run company, India's largest natural gas pipeline operator, has revived the 2,050-km pipeline project after eight years of uncertainty following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's push to get cleaner fuel to eastern India even though the source of the gas, customers and the funding for the project remain shaky.

The company resurrected the project after the Modi-led NDA government decided to revive the fertiliser units in Barauni in Bihar and Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh amid attempts by the coalition leader Bharatiya Janata Party to shore up political fortunes in the two states.

While some of the contracts for the spur lines have already been awarded, GAIL has learnt from its experience that deadlines are easily missed if the company does not take care to deal with the external environment such as the local communities and regulators.


ET