Assam has asked the Union petroleum and natural gas ministry to make arrangement for supply of natural gas from central public sector undertakings (PSUs) for Assam's thermal power plants.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told Dharmendra Pradhan, Union petroleum and natural gas ministry here, that Assam required increased thermal power generation to meet its increasing demand and asked the Union minister to make arrangement for natural gas for Namrup and Lakwa thermal power stations. The Namrup plant would generate 98 Mw power and Lakwa plant has a generation capacity of 220 Mw power.
Moreover, Gogoi also requested the Union minister to take initiatives for linking small gas fields for power generation. In this context he mentioned that the proposed Titabor Gas Based Power Project with a capacity of 50 Mw and Cachar Gas based power project with another 50 Mw capacity would get a boost if gas linkage could be established with the intervention from the petroleum ministry.
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Gogoi also requested that the Centre should allocate on nomination basis the small gas fields to Assam state PSUs for exploitation of gas.
On royalty on crude oil, Gogoi requested Pradhan to take "steps" so that Assam gets royalty on actual market price and not on the basis of heavily discounted sale price. Gogoi urged the Centre to increase the existing royalty of 20 per cent to 25 per cent in case of Assam and other Northeastern states in view of the "locational disadvantages" of the region.
Referring a Supreme Court's interim order which directed the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to pay crude oil royalty to Gujarat on pre-discounted crude price beginning from February 1, 2014, Gogoi urged the Centre that the same dispensation should be applied for Assam as well.
Gogoi also requested Pradhan for "necessary intervention" for a special program piloted by the central Oil PSUs for setting up downstream petroleum units, particularly in the medium and small enterprise sector, making use of the infrastructure created by the state government in the plastics, gas cracker, etc, sectors for generating employment avenues in the state.
