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Four corridors planned for gas grid in Andhra Pradesh

Special Correspondent

YSR reviews demand, pipeline routing issues with officials

Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh Government is contemplating four major corridors for routing the proposed gas grid in the State — Kakinada to Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad to Karimnagar, Hyderabad to Anantapur (to connect to Bangalore) and Vijayawada to Nellore and Cuddapah (to connect to Chennai). The Government has identified the corridors for establishing the gas grid by 2008.

Supply deficit

Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy reviewed the demand for natural gas and proposed pipeline routing in the State with senior officials here on Tuesday.

A study commissioned by the Government indicated that there was a huge supply-deficit to consumers holding current gas allocations.

The study indicated that there was a significant gas requirement in the areas of power sector, fertilizers and other industries such as ceramics, glass and paper. This was likely to go up significantly across different sectors by 2020.

Skewed demand

The Chief Minister observed that the State needed to firm up plans for development of gas transmission pipeline infrastructure by 2010 to facilitate growth across the State.

He said while the existing network needed to be expanded, plans must also be drawn for serving the new projects and industries in districts.

Officials told Dr. Reddy that the demand was heavily skewed in favour of the Visakhapatnam-Godavari-Kakinada-Krishna-Nalgonda-Hyderabad belt. The trunk lines proposed would connect a majority of the existing industrial clusters in the State, he was told.

Create corporate entity

The Chief Minister told officials to create a corporate entity with adequate State Government control and support from financial investors to lead the initiatives as it would lead to a spurt in economic development across the State, including in the underdeveloped areas.

K.V. Rao, Principal Secretary, Infrastructure and Investment, S.V. Prasad, Principal Secretary, Revenue, Rachel Chatterjee, CMD, Transco, and L.V. Subramanyam, MD, Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation, were present.

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