The Jagdishpur-Haldia Pipeline (JHPL) will be completed by 2019, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Sunday.In the city for the West Bengal launch of a central scheme aimed at providing LPG connections to below poverty level households, Pradhan also said Piped Natural Gas (PNG) will be available to households within the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) area in the next couple of years."The JHPL has remained a dream for the last several years, but now concrete plans have been made and the project will materialise within the next 2-3 years," Pradhan said."The pipeline will go through several important centres in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal and Odisha, benefitting the entire eastern region," he said.
The 2,050-km pipeline from Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh to Haldia in West Bengal entails an investment of Rs 12,000 crore, of which the Centre's share is 40 per cent and the remaining amount is borne by the country's biggest natural gas transporter GAIL.Pradhan also said the pipeline will play a major role for fertiliser plants in Gorakhpur, Barauni, Sindri as well as those in Bengal.Talking about Kolkata, Pradhan assured households within the KMC limits that they will be able to avail PNG in the next "two to three years". Besides, LPG too would be introduced in the city."CNG has become the norm in Delhi and Mumbai, it is cheap and a clean fuel. We will be bringing CNG to Kolkata in the next 2-3 years," added Pradhan.