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The Government of Tamil Nadu has approached the Supreme Court of India seeking the apex court to quash the recent order of Madras High Court, which gave a green signal to the gas pipeline project of the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) through seven districts of Tamil Nadu.
The Madras High Court, on November 25, has given a nod to the GAIL's pipeline project in Tamil Nadu and asked the State government to provide protection to the works preventing law and order issues. The division bench order was on a petition filed by GAIL seeking the High Court to quash the State government's order to stop execution of the project in its planned manner.
While passing the Order, the First Bench of the Madras High Court, consisting of Chief Justice Rajesh Kumar Agrawal and Justice M Sathyanarayanan observed that Gas is an alternate source fuel and public interest should be considered.
The State government, in March, has stopped the project following protest from farmers' group and asked Gail to look at options to realign the pipeline adjacent to the National Highway. The proposed gas pipeline is to carry natural gas from Kochi to Mangalore through a few districts in Tamil Nadu.
It is against this order, the State government has today filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. The State government has also requested the apex court to uphold its order stopping Gail from laying pipeline as per its existing plan.
M Easan, the counsel representing 20 farmers who were also involved in the litigation, said that the farmers would also join the litigation in the Supreme Court as a party, once the petition is taken up. According to local sources, around 7000 farmers were affected due to the project in these seven districts.
The Kochi-Kuttanad-Bangalore-Mangalore gas pipeline project was supposed to pass through seven districts of Tamil Nadu, a distance of 310 kms covering 134 villages, with an investment of around Rs 5000 crore.
GAIL officials earlier said the issue is not only impacting GAIL ? its Rs 2,000 crore is stuck in the project ? but also Petronet LNG’s Kochi terminal, for which GAIL is unable to complete the gas evacuation route.
Besides, industries in Tamil Nadu dependent on the gas, even the State Government’s revenues (Tamil Nadu is to get almost 4 mmscmd of gas) by way of taxes and levies would get hit. The power-deficit State will lose out on the fuel.
The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu told the State Assembly earlier that 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 people and not the other way around," she said.
GAIL, which has laid the initial 60/70-km stretch through farmer fields, said that around 30,000 km of operational pipelines runs under farmlands and of this, more than 10,000 kms were laid by GAIL in the last 25 years. The company has laid networks, in farmland, across the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka.
