Bara, April 30

The Nepal-India cross border petroleum pipeline project has reached its final phase of construction.

According to Petroleum Pipeline Extension Project, Simara, Engineer Sharad Poudel, of the 68.9km long pipeline project from India’s Motihari to Amlekhgunj in Bara, work on the 3km stretch in Parsa National Park is left to be completed now.

“As work has picked pace after clearing some 6,500 trees on the 9-km stretch in the national park, it won’t be long before the project will be complete as only 3km of pipeline laying remains now,” added Poudel, who, citing sources at Indian Oil Corporation, said the project would come into operation by the end of this fiscal.

Earlier, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi had jointly inaugurated construction of the project from New Delhi-based Hyderabad House during the former’s India visit. The pipeline is said to have a flow of 200,000 litre of fuel per hour.

As the pipeline project nears completion, repair of the four old tanks in Amlekhgunj depot is also set to be completed. Of the four tanks, repair of three tanks has finished so far. While two of the tanks have capacity to hold 3,900kl fuel each, the capacity of the other two tanks is 4,100kl each.

An Indian company — Motiprabha —had been entrusted with development of the pipeline project that was initially expected to cost somewhere around 275 crore Indian rupees, of which the Government of Nepal will invest 75 crore rupees.

“Despite the initial stipulation, the cost of the project has increased by around 50 crore Indian rupees,” said Amlekhgunj-based Nepal Oil Corporation depot Chief Pradip Yadav, adding the increase was incurred due to use of machine to plant pipes in many places.