Coimbatore : Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) customers in Coimabtore and Salem cities would be supplied gas through pipeline in another three years, a top company official said today.

As the Government had allotted the task of carrying out city gas distribution network in these cities to IOC through bids recently, the preliminary works would start soon. This was likely to be completed in another three years,

IOC Executive Director of Tamil Nadu R Sitharthan told reporters here.

On problems being faced in laying pipes, he said this was not like any other pipe-laying projects. Since gas pipeline would be of smaller size, there would not be much of a problem to connect them with the main terminal.

The outlay for completing the project, however, was being work out, he said.

IOC would be investing nearly Rs 7,000 crore for developing infrastructure in Tamil Nadu during this period, he said, adding that it had plans for vast expansion of pipelines and increasing the capacity of plants for petroleum products

As against the average growth of 9.2 per cent of oil companies, IOC had grown at 9.4 per cent and had 2.25 crore gas customers in the State.