Industry urges govt to make best use of gas find

How to make best use of the recent natural gas find in Krishna-Godavari basin for the industrial prosperity of the state was the major point of discussion the CEOs from the state had with the chief minister at an interactive session in Hyderabad on Monday.

While there was a consensus among all the 180-odd representatives of the industry that the state should make use of all the natural gas that is  available in the basin, T G Venkatesh, the chairman of the TGV group and a  ruling party MLA, insisted on more concrete action from the state  government on the issue in view of Reliance's plans to lay pipeline network for other states for the supply of gas.

Making a presentation on the natural gas prospects, M Gopalakrishna, the chairman of APSFC and a member of the five-member expert committee set up by the state government on the issue, said that the committee would  make an in-depth study of legal, economic, regulatory and environmental  aspects of the gas find.

Apart from making a realistic assessment of gas  availability and distribution arrangements, the committee will suggest  measures for rapid and full utilisation of the gas find, Gopalakrishna said.

The five-member committee is headed by T L Sankar, an energy sector expert, and comprises S Varadarajan, the former chairman of IPCL, K V Raghavan, the director of IICT, and J C Mohanty, the secretary for co-ordination, apart from Gopalakrishna.

The committee will meet on January 9, 18 and 28 to seek suggestions  on how to avail of the emerging life-time  opportunity in the form of gas.

The concerns of the committee are over pricing of gas, end use of gas, supporting infrastructure and incentives,  he explained.

Making an interesting observation on the issue, Y Harishchandra  Prasad, the managing director of Lanco Kondapalli Power, said that the  state can realise more than Rs 500 crore per annum by way of sales tax from the gas,  if the proper plan is put in place.

He said that the Reliance gas find did not strictly come under the purview of the state since it is located about  100 km off the coast.

"Even the royalty of Rs 187 per thousand cubic metre of gas, which we are currently getting from ONGC may not come for the state in the  case of Reliance gas find owing to the above reason," Harish felt.

He suggested that the best way to utilise the gas for the  benefit of the state would be to allow power projects to come up in the  state in a big way so that  it can export power to other states.

He further  said that under the New Exploration Licensing Policy, any gas find  should be fully exploited by the licensee within 10 years of the  commencement of the commercial operations of the gas wells.

This necessitates the time-bound action plan from the government if the state wants to fully utilise the gas that is available, Harish observed.