The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board has asked the Government to cancel licence granted to Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure (RGTIL), a Mukesh Ambani outfit, for going slow on laying four cross-country pipelines.

The pipeline networks were to run from the East coast to the South and also connect East coast with Haldia. Authorisation for the Haldia-Jagdishpur pipeline to be laid by GAIL (India) Ltd may also get affected.

Official sources said the Board has written to the Petroleum Ministry, which in turn will issue a show-cause notice to the Reliance arm for delay in implementation of the projects.

Asked why the notice would go from the Ministry, an official said this was because the authorisation was given to the entities before the Board became functional.

Bank guarantee delay

In 2007-08, Relogistics Infrastructure Ltd, a subsidiary RGTIL, was authorised to lay following pipelines: Kakinada-Haldia; Kakinada-Chennai; Chennai-Bangalore-Mangalore; and Chennai-Tuticorin. The total stretch of the network was over 2,000 km.

Last month at a meeting convened by the Petroleum Ministry, RGTIL was asked to give bank guarantee for the delay.

The company sought three weeks time from the Ministry to furnish the guarantee. The delay in furnishing the bank guarantee was because Relogistics has since been merged with the parent company.

When a notice was issued to the companies earlier, Relogistics had said that since gas was not available it had not gone ahead with the work on the pipeline.

Deadline nearing

According to the authorisation, the pipelines had to be laid in three years from date of approvals granted. The pipelines were to be completed within 36 months of the notification of Expression of Interest or 24 months from the date of 100 per cent availability of Right of User (RoU), whichever is later. The deadlines for all the pipelines expire between June and August.

At present RGTIL operates the East-West Pipeline that moves gas from Reliance Industries-operated D6 gas fields on the East coast (Kakinada, in Andhra Pradesh) to West (Bharuch, Gujarat).

>richam@thehindu.com

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