Govt has narrow window for gas price as deadline looms large

The government has a narrow window of one day to approve a new gas pricing mechanism to meet its own deadline of announcing a new rate.
The government had promised to come up with a new gas price by September end but it only has tomorrow to get it approved as Prime Minister Narendra Modi will leave for US on Thursday afternoon.
Tomorrow being a Wednesday is the scheduled day for holding meetings of Cabinet and its committees where the oil ministry can bring up a proposal for new gas price, officials said.
However, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who was on Sunday evening admitted to hospital for a check-up after an operation to treat his diabetes, is yet to be discharged.

He may be discharged tomorrow morning, Jaitley's aides said.
A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) can be scheduled after his availability is confirmed, officials said.

Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who has been consulting Jaitely on the issue, last met the Finance Minister late on Friday evening.
Modi, who will launch the "Make in India" campaign on Thursday morning to promote manufacturing in the country, is scheduled to leave for US late in the afternoon that day. He will return in the evening of October 1.
So if the CCEA does not approve a new price tomorrow, it is likely that government will miss the September 30 deadline.

Officials said the entire issue is being treated with utmost secrecy and limited copies of the report of a four- member committee of secretaries that looked at the new pricing mechanism, have been made.
The Oil Ministry, they said, may even take comments on the note it has prepared for the Cabinet, based on the committee recommendation, through email to the concerned ministers, to prevent it from getting leaked.
The government had last month constituted a committee comprising of secretaries of power, fertilizer and expenditure with additional secretary in the oil ministry as its member secretary, to make amends to a formula notified in January that doubled the gas price to USD 8.4 per million British thermal unit.

Though contents of the report have been kept under wraps, officials indicated that the price increase may be around 50 per cent. Most of the domestically produced gas is currently sold at a price of USD 4.2 per mmBtu.
The panel has tried to strike a balance between demands for a market linked rate by gas producers to make marginal and deepsea fields economically viable, and consumers in power and fertilizer sector, who have said they cannot afford any rate higher than USD 5.