The state government has won half the battle against Reliance Industries Limited over the laying of pipelines to carry gas on two important corridors — Kakinada-Kolkata and Kakinada-Chennai.
The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board recommended to the Centre to cancel the licence given to Reliance to lay the pipelines. The state-run AP Gas Distribution Corpora-tion has expressed its read-iness to take up the project which Reliance had kept in cold storage for years.
Sources said the constant pressure from the state for the past one year made the gas regulatory board rethink on Reliance, and the firm commitment by APGDC to provide an al-ternative to Reliance led to the recommendation to ca-ncel the oil major’s licence.
“We initially proposed to take up the pipeline within our state but PNGRB sought to know whether we were willing to execute the entire project,” a senior official said. APGDC wrote back to the board two weeks ago expressing its willingness to do so.
The state is now waiting for the ministry of petroleum to take a final decision. “It took more than a year for the regulator to recommend the cancellation of the licence and it is to be seen how long the ministry sits on the recommendation,” sources said.
The pipelines are crucial as several industries in the oil, glass and ceramic sectors located in Visakhapa-tnam and Nellore suffer from lack of adequate gas, the prime energy source.
APGDC asked the gas regulatory board to either for-ce Reliance to lay the pipe-lines or allow it to take up the project in the Kaki-nada-Srikakulam stretch and Ennore-Nellore.