Petroleum regulatory board gets chairman

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has cleared the name of Labayendu Mansingh, former director general of foreign trade, as the first chairman of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board. The move comes almost a year after Parliament approved the setting up of the regulatory board.

Mansingh, who retired as secretary in the department of consumer affairs, will head the regulatory board that will have LK Singhvi, former chief commissioner of Income Tax in Delhi, BS Negi, former director (business development) of GAIL, and Sudha Mahalingam, currently working with Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Contemporary Studies, Museum and Library, in Delhi, as members.

YPC Dangay, former joint secretary in the law ministry, will be the legal member on the board, while Mahesh Lal, former chairman and managing director of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, will be in the Apellete Tribunal linked to the board to settle disputes.

Ajay Tyagi, former joint secretary in the ministry of petroleum, is already functioning as the secretary in the regulatory board. "We have not yet received any communication from the PMO. The appointment of the chairman and the board members will be done as soon as we get the notification," a senior official in the petroleum ministry said.

The regulatory board is significant as the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board Act, 2006, says that the board will regulate the refining, processing, storage, transportation, distribution, marketing and sale of petroleum and petroleum products excluding production of crude oil and natural gas.

Moreover, all new gas pipelines need to be approved by the regulator. Although a few gas companies have been holding back "thousands of crores of investments" in city gas distribution projects, this did not hold back companies like GAIL, which got the nod from the petroleum ministry for investments worth Rs 18,000 crore for laying almost 5,000 km of new gas pipelines.

Petroleum ministry officials also say that gas pricing will be outside the scope of the regulator.

"The regulator will not have a say in pricing of gas under NELP blocks. That will be determined through market discovered prices," a senior oil ministry official said.

Of late, Reliance Industries' (RIL) gas from the K-G basin has been under the scanner with many government officials demanding that the gas price should be regulated by the government in order to supply it at lower prices to power and fertiliser companies, whose products are subsidised.

However, the petroleum ministry itself is of the view that the gas price should be market determined, and "even the regulator will not have a say in its pricing."