| The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has pulled up the government for commissioning six gas-based power plants without fully tying up the gas supply with Gail. |
| The CAG said the shortage of gas and the fact that Gail did not even supply the committed amount of gas had driven the plants to rely on more expensive alternate fuel like naphtha. This has resulted in a four-to-five-fold increase in generation cost. |
| The CAG has also criticised Gail's telecom foray. It described the laying of 8,494-km of optical fibre cable as being loss-making. It said Gail went ahead with the project without preparing even a detailed project report. |
| Gail then started the second phase without considering the unsatisfactory performance of the previous phases. It has not achieved targets in terms of capacity sales and revenue during any of the four years since 2001. |
| Regarding the issue of gas-based power plants, the CAG pointed out that NTPC had commissioned six gas-based power projects at Anta, Auriya, Kawas, Dadri, Gandhar and Faridabad with a generation capacity of 3,657 Mw. |
| However, against the requirement of 14.17 million cubic metres of gas required for full capacity utilisation, Gail has committed only 12.75 mcmd of gas. This was sufficient to operate the plants at 66 per cent of capacity only, the CAG report tabled in Parliament said. |
| "Even at the initial stage there was a mismatch between the required gas and the quantity tied up by the government," the CAG said. |
| It added that neither the government nor NTPC took measures to assess the availability of gas at the initial stage of preparing of the detailed project report. |
| Despite the under-utilisation of the existing capacity due to inadequate supply of gas, NTPC decided to go for further expansion during 2002-2007. |
| However, as customers refused to buy costlier gas produced through naphtha, NTPC had to defer its expansion after incurring an expenditure of Rs 23 crore. |
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