GAIL's Urja Ganga gas pipeline project completion delayed until March 2025

The construction of the Rs 12,940-crore 'Urja Ganga' gas pipeline, India's most ambitious project taking environment-friendly fuel to eastern parts of the country, has been delayed by nine months and will now be completed by March 2025, state-owned GAIL (India) Ltd said.

The 3,306-kilometre Jagdishpur-Haldia-Bokaro-Dhamra pipeline was originally targeted for completion by June 2024. But due to "delay in right of use (RoU) availability", the completion schedule has been revised "from June 2024 to March 2025", GAIL said in a stock exchange filing.

The bulk of the pipeline has already been constructed, and gas has started to flow in most cities along the route.

Traditionally, natural gas was available for use as fuel to generate electricity, make fertiliser or turn into CNG and cooking gas only in the western and northern parts of the country, as pipelines taking the fuel from source to users were limited to these parts.

In October 2016, work on laying a pipeline from Jagdishpur in Ut