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GAIL to lease out fibre optic bandwidth

Our Bureau

MUMBAI, Oct. 21

GAS Authority of India (GAIL) Ltd planned to lease out optical fibre bandwidth to Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, Hutchison and Hughes Telecom in Maharashtra, Mr C.R. Prasad, Chairman and Managing Director, GAIL, said.

``We are in the final stages of talks with them,'' he said.

GAIL plans to lay optical fibre cables along the 1,250-km network of natural gas pipelines it intends to set up in the Maharashtra-Goa region. The gas pipelines will connect Mumbai with Nasik, Solapur and Goa.

The company had already signed contracts with Bharati Telecom, Shyam Telecom, BPL and Escotel Mobile Services for lease of its telecom bandwidth in Rajasthan, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, Mr Prasad said.

``We will exploit our pipeline infrastructure and right-of-use to provide high bandwidth fibre optic networks to industries,'' he said.

GAIL has also signed a cooperation agreement with Maharashtra Petrochemical Corporation Ltd (MPCL) and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) for studying the total demand and marketing needs for natural gas within the State.

``By the end of this month, we will be signing a gas purchase agreement with Enron for two million tonnes of natural gas,'' he said. GAIL will also shortly sign the final agreement with Powergrid Corporation for fibre optic bandwidth sharing, he said.

``We will be in a position to supply gas purchased from Enron to industries in the Mumbai-Pune-Nasik belt by end of 2002,'' he said.

GAIL was part of another joint venture Indigas (the other partners being TotalFina and the Tatas), which had plans for supply of six million tonnes of natural gas to industries in the Mumbai-Pune-Nasik zone by early 2004, he said.