Initiated in October 2016, the Urja Ganga project, also known as the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga pipeline worth INR 12,940-crore, aims to bring natural gas to eastern India for the first time.
Jul 4, 2024
The construction of India’s most ambitious project taking environment-friendly fuel to eastern parts of the country, ‘Urja Ganga’ gas pipeline, has been delayed by nine months and will now be completed by March 2025.
The 3,306 km Jagdishpur-Haldia-Bokaro-Dhamra Pipeline (JHBDPL) worth INR 12,940-crore was originally targeted for completion by June 2024. But due to delay in the ‘right of use’ (RoU) availability, the completion schedule has been revised from June 2024 to March 2025, state-owned GAIL (India) Limited said in a stock exchange filing.
GAIL’s board of directors approved the revision of the completion schedule on June 28. The completion date for the 240-km Dhamra-Haldia section was also revised from June 2024 to March 2025, added the company.
Despite the delay, construction on most of the pipeline is already complete and natural gas has begun flowing to many cities along the route.
Initiated in October 2016, the Urja Ganga project, also known as the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga pipeline, aimed to bring natural gas to eastern India for the first time.
Traditionally, the access of natural gas in India for use as fuel to generate electricity, make fertilizers or turn into CNG & cooking gas was limited to the western and northern parts of the country, as pipelines taking the fuel from source to users were limited to these regions.
The project aimed to bridge this gap by establishing a pipeline network from Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh to Dhamra in Odisha. The line was extended to Guwahati in Assam from Barauni in Bihar, a length of 726 km, to take the fuel to hereto-unconnected states in the eastern region.
When completed, the JHBDPL pipeline will supply gas to the eastern states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal.
On May 10, 2019, GAIL stated that it has completed awards of all major contracts worth INR 10,500 crore for pipeline supply and laying of the integrated 3400-km Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra Natural Gas Pipeline and Barauni-Guwahati Pipeline (BGPL).
The government provided 40 per cent viability gap funding amounting to INR 5,176 crore for the execution of JHBDPL. It further provided a 60 percent viability gap funding amounting to INR 5,559 crore for BGPL.
The Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga pipeline will connect all geographical areas (more than 90) spread over Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal and further to the northeastern region of India. When the project is fully completed, the northeastern/eastern part of India will become an integral part of the gas-based economy with the twin benefits of the cheapest gas transportation through Urja Ganga and gas pricing reforms.
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Under the unified tariff regulations recently notified by sector regulator Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), transportation tariff has been cut by about 50 percent to INR 99.90 per million British thermal units for the eastern parts, helping make the clean fuel more affordable.
The pipeline has already started feeding seven city gas distribution (CGD) projects in Varanasi, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, and Cuttack. It also connects the refineries, located at Barauni, Haldia, and Paradip. The JHBDPL has a transmission capacity of 16 million cubic metres of natural gas a day.
