The Assam government was desperately looking forward to get the state connected to the national gas grid in order to tide over the acute crisis of natural gas plaguing the state as on date, state industry and commerce minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said here on Tuesday. Patowary said the existing oil and gas fields in the state were not producing sufficient quantity of natural gas to feed numerous industries, with the list including several hundred tea garden factories, the Namrup fertilizer plants, at least three thermal power plants and the newly-established gas-cracker plant in Dibrugarh. “With the production of natural gas in the state dwindling, Assam’s industrial sector looks like heading for a severe crisis in near future. The state needs to be connected to the national gas grid at Barauni in order to get sufficient supply of gas to run the existing gas-based industries,” he said. The industry minister was speaking on the sidelines of a function where Oil India Ltd (OIL) had signed an MoU with IIT Guwahati for funding two start-up enterprises for the oil sector here on Tuesday. Pointing out that the government of India had already floated expression of interest (EoI) for laying a 750-km gas pipeline from Barauni to Numaligarh in Assam, Patowary however said that the response so far was not been very encouraging. The proposed gas pipeline with an estimated cost of about Rs 3,000 crore would also involve acquisition of land, which too looked like a problem area, he said. Patowary also informed that the Assam government was looking forward to Oil India Ltd to come forward to take up the gas pipeline project given the fact that it had laid the longest crude oil pipeline (Duliajan-Barauni) east of the Suez Canal in the early 1960s. Oil India Ltd CMD Utpal Bora, who was present on the occasion, however said Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) was the right PSU to execute the proposed Barauni-Numaligarh gas pipeline project. “There is question of economic viability of the project and GAIL may do it, provided the government of India was willing to do the viability gap funding,” he said. In the event of GAIL not taking up the proposed gas pipeline project, Oil India Ltd would examine joining hands with Assam Gas Company Ltd, a state PSU, to lay the gas pipeline so crucial for the industrial growth of Assam and the Northeastern region, the Oil India CMD said.
