After reducing Oil imports with Iran, India has decided to import Natural Gas from Turkmenistan . Cabinet has approved the purchase through the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India  (TAPI) pipeline project.
The pipeline will transport Caspian Sea natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India.
The cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the proposal of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to permit GAIL (India) Ltd. to sign the gas sale and purchase agreement (GSPA) with TurrnenGas, Turkmenistan’s national oil company for the TAPI project.
The TAPI project is envisaged to be 1,680-km pipeline (144 km in Turkmenistan, 735 km in Afghanistan and 800 km in Pakistan) with a capacity to carry 90 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCMD) of gas, with 38 MMSCMD each for India and Pakistan and the remaining 14 MMSCMD for Afghanistan.
The pipeline is expected to be operational in 2017 and supply gas over a 30 years’ period.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have committed to the safety and security of the pipeline through the Inter-Governmental Agreement and the Gas Purchase Framework Agreement signed among the four countries in December 2010.
The roots of this project lie in the involvement of international oil compani es in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan beginning of 1990s. As Russia, who controlled all export pipelines of these countries, consistently refusing to allow the use of its pipeline network, these companies needed an independent export route avoiding both Iran and Russia.
The pipeline will be 1,420 millimetres (56 in) in diameter with a working pressure of 100 standard atmospheres (10,000 kPa). The cost of the pipeline is estimated cost at US$ 7.6 billion.The project is to be financed by the  Asian Development Bank.