GAIL's pipeline project halted

Tamil Nadu govt will inform Madras High Court of its decision regarding the pipeline project

Mulainayakanam Pallayam, a small village, around 525 km from Chennai and close to the textile town of Tirupur, is in a celebratory mood as Tamil Nadu has decided to not allow the Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) to proceed with its pipeline project across seven districts of Tamil Nadu. The project was part of GAIL’s plan to connect Kerala with Karnataka via Tamil Nadu. The government has said it will not allow GAIL to lay pipelines on agricultural land.

This village, which was the starting point of GAIL’s proposed pipeline was the hot spot after the agitating farmers clashed with the police two months ago when they were trying to stop GAIL’s representatives who were trying to conduct a survey and cut trees in their farms. The matter then went to the court which has asked the police not to give any protection to the project and not to go against farmers. The court also directed the state government to have a public hearings.

Following this, the state government held meetings for three days at Chennai early this month in which 2,428 farmers from 134 villages had expressed their concerns over the project.

Today, responding to a calling attention motion on GAIL’s gas pipeline project in the Assembly, the chief minister said her government would not encourage projects affecting people’s welfare and nobody will accept any justification that industrial growth should be attained at the cost of farmers. My government is determined that projects are for the people and not the other way around,” she said. The project was supposed to link Kochi gas terminal with Bangalore, through seven districts of Tamil Nadu, a distance of 310 kms with an investment of around Rs 5,000 crore, through farmer fields, she said the state government has decided to urge GAIL to run the pipeline adjacent to highways to avoid damage to agricultural lands. According to local sources, around 7,000 farmers were affected due to the project in these seven districts.

The chief minister also said, GAIL should restore the fields where trenches have been cut to its original condition, remove pipelines that have so far been laid in farmers’ fields and compensate farmers for their losses.

The company had also represented its case to the state government through a letter dated March 8, 2013. But it had not given strong technological reasons for not srunning the pipeline adjacent to highways, she said. The Tamil Nadu government will inform the Madras High Court of its decision regarding the pipeline project, she said.