Varanasi, Oct. 25: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday laid the foundation stone for a 1,500-km-long gas pipeline in his parliamentary constituency as part of the government's Rs 51,000-crore project to provide natural gas to the eastern region.

"India cannot progress unless the eastern part progresses. We want to make this region a vibrant economic centre for growth. For this, we have to link the region with the clean fuel," Modi said.

The 1,500-km long pipeline, which is a part of the Urjaa Ganga project, aims to provide cooking gas to the residents of seven cities - Varanasi, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Calcutta, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.

"Within three years, I want to replace all households using wood for cooking to gas-based cooking, be it either LPG or piped natural gas," he said.

The Centre has planned investments of Rs 51,000 crore in the east. This includes Rs 13,000 crore for the Jagdishpur-Haldia & Bokaro-Dhamra pipelines, Rs 6,000 crore for the Dhamra LNG project, Rs 6,000 crore for a city gas distribution network and Rs 26,000 crore for a fertiliser project.

It has recently approved a funding of Rs 5,176 crore to partly meet the project cost of the 2,540 km long Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra gas pipelines. The project will connect the eastern part of the country with the national grid and supply gas in five states - Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal and Odisha.

During the 12th Five-Year Plan (2016-17), the government plans to add 15,918 km of pipelines to an existing network of 16,250 km.