MUMBAI: GAIL hopes to complete the Kochi-Mangaluru gas pipeline by June or July this year, having missed the March-end deadline due to technical difficulties in some parts of the route, chairman and managing director B C Tripathi told reporters in Mumbai on Tuesday.“Kochi-Mangalore-Bangalore is the whole project, in which we have problems of acquiring right of way.
We have left the Tamil Nadu portion out. The focus is on the Kochi-Mangalore portion, and it is almost 95 per cent complete,” Tripathi said.
In the last 5 per cent, there are issues with the terrain, and it is expected to be completed by June or July, taking gas to the fertilizer plant, the refinery at Mangalore and the city gas distribution project being executed by GAIL subsidiary GAIL Gas.
“As soon as the right of way issue is resolved in Tamil Nadu, we will also take up the western Tamil Nadu part of the pipeline,” Tripathi said. However, he ruled out any realignment of the route.