Left MPs write to PM on gas reserves

The Left MPs today asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to see that natural gas reserves, including the Krishna-Godavari (K-G) basin, were not appropriated as family property, saying the natural asset and the interests of the economy could not be “held hostage” to the benevolence and mercy of some “private players”.

“We strongly believe that the Centre’s firm assertion declaring the country’s natural gas reserves, including the gas of the K-G basin, as a national asset should be followed up by appropriate executive action on a proper distribution mechanism to make the gas available to priority sectors in the country,” all 30 MPs of the Left parties said in a letter to the prime minister.

Elaborating on the text of the letter, CPI(M) MP Sitaram Yechury told reporters here that the regional balance in gas distribution should also be ensured through a national gas grid as proposed in the budget. The pricing of gas should also be based on a rational and transparent formulation, Yechury said.

“As gas is being produced in our own soil, there is absolutely no justification of pricing it on the basis of linkage with international price of an altogether different product like crude oil, as has been done at present by fixing the gas price at $4.32 per million metric British thermal units (mmBtu)”.

Hence, the present gas price determined by the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) must be revised and it should be benchmarked to $2.34 per mmBtu as offered to NTPC, a government-owned PSU, by RIL in 2004-2005, Yechury demanded.

The Left MPs also asked the Centre to take over the distribution and marketing rights of the KG-DG basin gas at the delivery point to ensure its distribution and marketing through a National Gas Grid under government control, as is being done in case of electricity through the Power Grid Corporation of India.

Yechury, along with another CPI(M) MP Basudeb Acharia, also demanded that the PM assign GAIL Ltd, a Central PSU, the role of a nodal agency for this purpose.