Strict action against those who oppose LNG pipeline, says Kerala Govt

Major political parties and other organisations like SDPI are strongly opposing the project

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The Kerala government has warned of strict action against those opposing the pipeline laying project for LNG distribution.

Inaugurating the pipe laying works at Binanipuram, near here, chief secretary Jiji Thomson said cases would be registered against those opposing under the Disaster Management Act (DM Act, 2005).

He said though the government was ready to negotiate at various levels to get their consent,  land owners were not willing even at high compensation. In the light of this, the government had decided to take strict  action against those opposing it.

He said pipelines had to be laid along 508 km in Kerala  for LNG distribution towards Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu and Mangalore in Karnataka from Puthuvype near Kochi, where Petronet LNG had commissioned its terminal, built at a cost of Rs 4,200 crore.  But so far,  around 50 km had been covered under Phase I.  GAIL is investing around Rs 3,500 crore in the project. The LNG terminal was commissioned in August, 2013.

Thomson said Kerala would not get further  financial aid  for infra projects from the Centre unless the pipeline connection was established and southern  gas grid formed. The government would also incur serious revenue loss because of the time lag.  

Major political parties and some organisations are opposing the project on the ground that the pipes would generate serious security issues. Police today arrested 15 persons including a village panchayat member for protesting.

GAIL sources told Business Standard the major beneficiary of the Kochi-Bangalore pipeline would be the industrial units in Tamil Nadu. The line is to pass through the industrial corridor of the state, connecting Coimbatore, Tirupur, Salem, Dharmapuri, Erode, Namakkal and Krishnagiri.

Almost 50 per cent of the LNG transported through this line could be used by the industrial units in these centres. About 508 km of the pipeline alignment is in Kerala running through districts of Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode and Kannur.

Public hue and cry over the land acquisition slowed down the pipeline-laying work and so far only 50  kms have been completed in phase-2. GAIL has reduced the width of the land required under the Right of Use (RoU) from 20 metres to 10 metres, exclusively for Kerala.