AP CM to meet PM over gas quota issue

Seeking to salvage the situation, Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy today left for Delhi to meet the Prime Minister and other top leaders.

Reddy is pursuing the matter with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the EGoM on gas issues to ensure that the efforts of Andhra Pradesh are protected, state Congress president Botsa Satyanarayana told reporters here.

On August 1, the Centre had issued an order that two million metric standard cubic meters per day (MMSCMD) of gas be diverted from the Krishna-Godavari basin to Ratnagiri in Maharashtra.

Already starved of gas for its power plants that have been working with a load factor of only 30 per cent, Andhra Pradesh would now get only 1.48 MMSCMD of gas from Reliance's D6 wells.

The reduction in the quota of gas to the gas-based power projects in the state made Telugu Desam and other Opposition parties hit out at the Congress governments at the Centre and in state for "injustice" done to Andhra Pradesh.

Satyanarayana said he would apologise to the people for the difficulties caused to them due to the power cuts. MORE