GAIL told to cut gas supply to non-priority sectors for retail needs

The government Wednesday asked state-run gas utility GAIL India (GAIL) to cut natural gas supplies to non-priority sectors like steel and petrochemicals in order to meet the full CNG (compressed natural gas) requirements of retailers like Indraprastha Gas Ltd.

"It has been decided to authorise GAIL for diverting domestic gas from non-priority sector to meet the requirement of CNG (transport) and PNG (domestic) segment as per their actual consumption," the petroleum ministry said in an order to GAIL.

The ministry said it has revised guidelines for allocation of supply of domestic natural gas to city gas distribution (CGD) entities for the CNG and piped cooking gas sectors.

The gas would be supplied at uniform base price to each CGD entity.

The order said GAIL will do the allocation exercise at the end of every six months and supply gas to CGD entities based on their average consumption, while any increased requirement of the gas would be met by cutting supplies of non-priority sectors.