India gas transmission company Gas Authority of India, Ltd. (GAIL) has awarded INR105bn (US$1.5bn) in contracts to developers for the completion of its 2,655 km Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga (PMUG) project.
The project includes the construction of the 2,655 km Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dharma natural gas pipeline projects (JHBDPL) and a 727 km further extension the Barauni–Guwahati pipeline project (BGPL). The project will connect India's eastern States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha to the national grid. In its first phase, the project will deliver 2.7 bcm/year, with a later increase to 5.8 bcm/year. Phase-I has been completed in February 2019; works for the second phase have already started and are expected to be commissioned by December 2020, whereas the Barauni to Guwahat section is expected for December 2021. So far GAIL has committed INR125bn (US$1,77bn) to the project (which is expected to cost a little over US$1.90bn).
GAIL runs a pipeline network that supplies gas from the region of Bombay to the northern part of the country; it is more than 11 500 km long with a total capacity of around 75 bcm/year. The company is currently executing around 5,500 km of pipeline related projects and plans to add another 1,400 km of gas pipeline by 2023. These pipeline projects by GAIL will be part of the National Gas Grid providing Natural Gas to areas hitherto untouched by the green fuel.