Left endorses govt's view on KG gas row, seeks lowering of price

NEW DELHI: The Ambani gas row on Sunday saw the Left parties entering the frame with a demand that the government take over the distribution and marketing right of the KG-D 6 basin gas at the delivery point. In a letter to the prime minister signed by 30 of its MPs, the Left parties said the gas should be distributed and marketed only through the National Gas Grid.

The petition from the Left will help the government and petroleum minister Murli Deora ward off the charge that the government���s affidavit in the Supreme Court over the feud in the Ambani clan was filed only to help the elder brother. For, the CPM has endorsed the government���s decision.

���The government has rightly asserted that the country's natural gas reserves, including the gas of KG Basin, is a national asset and this asset and the interests of the economy cannot be held hostage to the benevolence and mercy of some private players,��� the Left MPs said in the letter.

But, the MPs said, the decision of the government should be followed up by appropriate executive action on proper distribution mechanism to make the gas available to priority sectors in the country . ���Also the regional balance in gas distribution should be ensured through a national gas grid as proposed in the Budget,��� the MPs said. In their letter, the Left MPs said the pricing of gas should be based on a rational and transparent formulation .

���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 making the gas price at $4.32 per mmbtu. Hence, the present gas price determined by the EGoM must be revised and it should be benchmarked to $2.34/mmbtu as offered to NTPC, a government owned PSU, by RIL in 2004-2005 ,��� they said. The letter was signed by Sitaram Yechury, Brinda Karat and D Raja among others.