GAIL India will explore further legal options to re-start work on the Tamil Nadu section of the Kochi-Bangalore high pressure LNG pipeline project with the Madras High Court closing a contempt petition filed by farmers opposing the project.
According to farmers’ representatives, the Tamil Nadu Government, the main respondent in the petition, has said that GAIL should run the underground pipeline adjacent to highways rather than through agricultural lands in the State, where the pipeline traverses over 310 km through seven districts.
GAIL should also restore the fields, where trenches have been cut and pipelines laid, to their original condition and compensate farmers. This was in line with its announcement last week in the Assembly, according to the petitioner P. Kandasamy, General Secretary of the farmers’ association.
The Court has directed the State Government to inform GAIL of its decision within three days.
Sources associated with the case said GAIL had hoped to file a sub-petition in the contempt proceeding No. 550 of 2013 in W.A. No. 1666 of 2012 explaining its stand, backed by expert views against running the pipeline along the highway and that the global norm is to run it across country under open lands. But the Court has directed GAIL to file a separate petition.
GAIL will now have to decide on further legal options — including whether it should approach the Supreme Court — to restart the Rs 3,200-crore infrastructure project, which could be stalled for several months, according to the sources.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa had announced the Government’s stand on the issue in the State Assembly on March 25 after a public hearing in which over 2,400 farmers from 134 villages had participated.
GAIL had said that it would not be possible to run the pipeline adjacent to highways as the law does not allow it and traffic movement would be disrupted. Future expansions would be also be a problem. It had also cited a multiple increase in costs and years of delay if the project was to be redesigned.