India to leave Indo-Myanmar gas pipeline project

Agartala, May 14: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) has decided to leave Indo-Myanmar gas pipeline project following Chinese influence on military administration in Myanmar.

According ONGC officials, opposition from Bangladesh for laying pipeline to transport gas to India from Myanmar via North Eastern states and West Bengal upto central India was the main hurdle for ONGC to carry out the project.

''Since Bangladesh disagreed our proposal, the project is now becoming a costly affair while China is trying hard to procure gas from Myanmar through pipeline because the country has been suffering for huge energy crisis since long,'' the officials said.

They also indicated that India would not go for any further bid to get back the pipeline project without cost-benefit analysis.

ONGC and GAIL, another major oil transporting company, had already invested about 40 per cent of the total project with a profit share at a same ratio.

The officials further added that ONGC earned about eight per cent higher profit during 2006-07 than 2005-06, which was Rs 14,431 crore and has declared the largest ever dividend of 450 per cent Meanwhile, subsidiary share power of the company had increased during last fiscal and recorded at Rs 17,345 crore that was only Rs 11025 crore in 2005-06.

UNI