Bhaskar Parichha
You don’t have to see everything politically. There is economic side too. The LNG terminal in Dhamra Port, at Bhadrak district of Odisha, is one such project which has politics as well as economics.
Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday performed the Bhumi Pujan in the absence of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
The CM didn’t feel it appropriate to grace the occasion for obvious reasons, although a formal invitation was sent. Neither Biju Janata Dal MPs nor the local MLAs attend the ceremony, even though their names appeared in the full-page advertisement released on the occasion.
In Odisha, both the ruling parties – BJD in the state and BJP at the centre – are at loggerheads for quite some time and the high decibel verbal war isn’t willing to subside anyway soon.
Leaving politics aside, the LNG terminal is going to be one of the key projects of the Narendra Modi government and all credit should go to Mr. Pradhan who has been strongly tracking the project.
Coming up at a cost of ₹6,000 crore, the LNG Terminal will facilitate supply of piped gas to households. Likewise, motor vehicles and industries would get cheaper and clean fuel.
“The 5 MMTPA capacity LNG terminal will play a major role in accelerating the process of development and economic growth in eastern India”, said Mr.Pradhan at the stone-laying ceremony.
What is of substance is another 13,000 crore rupees will be spent to construct a 2539 Km – long pipeline to transport gas. The pipeline will pass through as many as 13 districts of Odisha and states like Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.
The natural gas from the terminal would be supplied to various city distribution networks in the eastern India which is endowed with a massive coastline. Besides providing green fuel to the region, it will also cater to industries and transportation systems.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has singularly been focussing on eastern states and the Bhadrak LNG project is an extension of that logic, both politically and economically. BJP’s ‘Look-East’ policy focuses on states like Odisha and West Bengal. It has already governments in two other states: Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
Combined, these states are also the most neglected ones and they can benefit substantially from the emerging gas economy. The project will raise the country’s gas import capacity to 26 million tonnes a year.
In an interview few months back, the oil minister had detailed the plans for expanding the gas economy to East India, saying, “We are building three more LNG terminals in the eastern coast at Ennore in Tamil Nadu, Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh and Dhamra in Odisha. We are also expanding our gas pipeline network. Four new gas highways from Jagdishpur to Haldia, Ranchi to Paradip, Paradip to Surat and Mallavaram to Bhilwada are being built.”
State-owned Gail (India) Ltd will receive central government funding of Rs.5,176 crore to partly meet the project cost of the gas pipeline connecting the eastern part of the country with the national grid.
The central funding, about 40% of the total project cost of Rs.12,940 crore, will come from the oil industry development cess collected on crude oil production.
The LNG terminal and revival of the fertilizer units in the region will result in an investment of Rs.52,000 crore in this region over the next few years. The import terminal could eventually supply gas to Bangladesh and Nepal by laying pipelines.
(The writer is a senior journalist and currently associated with OdishaLIVE as Consulting Editor. You can share your comment with him at content(@)odisha(dot)live)
