Chennai, March 20 (IANS) India's largest gas transmission and marketing company Gail (India) Ltd will connect the southern states with gas pipelines by 2012, a top official of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas said here Saturday.

'We are according highest priority to the pipeline project. The work will start in March 2012 and will be completed in December. Ten days back we had called the Reliance group and Gail, and told them to accelerate the pipeline projects,' Petroleum and Natural Gas Secretary S. Sundareshan told reporters.

He agreed that the southern and eastern states were starved of gas unlike the western and northern regions of the country.

The three southern states - Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu - have been demanding a fair share of natural gas produced at the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin and early construction of pipelines to carry the gas.

He said Gail India will lay pipelines connecting Dabhol-Bangalore-Goa; Cochin-Mangalore-Bangalore; Bangalore-Chennai and Haldia-Jagadishpur, while Reliance would connect Kakinada (Andhra Pradesh)-Chennai-Tuticorin; Chennai-Bangalore and Kakinada-Haldia.

Asked about the 10 month time taken to lay pipelines for the Kakinada-Chennai-Tuticorin sector, he said: 'Much of time is for getting necessary approvals and the ROU (right of use) sanctions. Gail India will soon issue the tender for the projects.'

He said liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals could not be set up in all the cities. But when asked about the proposed Indian Oil Corporation's project here, he said: 'It is a commercial decision which IOC will take on its own.'