Union minister refutes Guj govt's claim on gas allocation

Union Minister of State for Petrochemicals and Natural Gas, RPN Singh on Sunday refuted claims made by Gujarat government of discrimination over allocation and pricing of natural gas.

The minister who was in Ahmedabad to attend the review meeting of oil marketing companies alleged that the state government was misleading the people by giving out false information about the allocation of natural gas to Gujarat and also about the price that it was being given.

Singh addressing a press conference said that Gujarat gets nearly 40 per cent of the natural gas produced in India. "Gujarat government is misleading the people of state with regard to allocation of gas to the state," Singh said. "Major chunk of gas is allocated to Gujarat," he added.

He said the fact was that there has been no reduction in allocation of gas to Gujarat in the last eight years. Singh explained that there was no intention to hamper development of Gujarat by reducing the gas allocation. The Minister also clarified that Gujarat was also receiving major portion of the gas under the Administered Price Mechanism (APM), more than Mumbai and Delhi. Earlier, on number of occasions the Narendra Modi-led government had alleged that Gujarat was not getting enough supply of natural gas from the centre. It had also claimed that the gas was being allocated at higher price to Gujarat compared to Delhi and Mumbai.

A recent judgement by the Gujarat High Court had directed the Central government to allocate natural gas to Ahmedabad city under APM price which is at present applicable to cities like Delhi and Mumbai. To counter claims of Modi government Leader of the opposition Shaktisinh Gohil, had on Saturday, issued a statement negating the claims of Gujarat government over the allocation of gas. He had said that Congress led UPA government at the Centre has allocated more gas to Gujarat than the BJP led NDA Government of the past.