Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the Kochi-Mangaluru natural gas pipeline, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 5, would pave the way for another wave of industrialisation of Kerala.
He said that Fertilizers and Chemicals Kerala and the petrochemicals complex coming up close to the Kochi refinery of Bharat Petroleum Corporation would benefit greatly from the availability of natural gas.
Also read: PM inaugurates natural gas pipeline between Kochi and Mangaluru
He was addressing the gathering on the occasion of the dedication of the 450-km natural gas pipeline to the nation through a teleconferencing facility.
The gas pipeline has been in the making for a long time. The project had come almost to a standstill in September 2014. Since then the government made all efforts to reactivate and conclude the project through concerted efforts and through the participation of people in the project, Mr. Vijayan said.
The gas pipeline, starting at the LNG terminal in Kochi, goes through Ernakulam (16 km); Thrissur district (78 km); Palakkad district (105 km); Malappuram district (58 km); Kozhikode district (80 km); Kannur district (83 km) and Kasargod district (83 km) before reaching Mangaluru.
The gas pipeline project has been progressing in different phases. The domestic gas supply in Kochi and the surrounding areas has been active since 2013 when the nearly 50-km pipeline was completed for supply of gas to industrial units like Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore and other units.
Though the project was launched in 2009 and was expected to be completed in 2016, land acquisition had turned out to be a problem for the progress of the project.
The massive floods of 2018 and 2019 and the breakout of the Nipah in Kozhikode district later had proved major hurdles for the project just before the COVID-19 lockdown came into effect. The project was completed at a cost of around ₹3,000 crore.
