There’s a lot happening in the oil and gas sector to boost gas consumption and make India Atmanirbhar, even as the most tracked divestment of BPCL is underway. CNBC-TV18 spoke to the person crafting the many moves across the sector on the several pieces of the reform agenda, Tarun Kapoor, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
“Crude price internationally has been going up and down, it has been fluctuating between USD 66 per barrel and USD 70 per barrel. Our price is depended on the product price which means that the price of petrol and diesel internationally and it has been fluctuating between USD 70 per barrel and USD 75 per barrel,” he said.
The government doesn’t get into the pricing because the oil marketing companies (OMCs) take their own decision.
“We don’t get into this pricing issue,” he mentioned.
In terms of getting gas under goods and services tax (GST), he said, “In the ministry, we feel that it is important to get gas under GST because gas is moved in pipelines across the country. We are also in the process of setting up a complete trunk network for the entire country. So that gas would be available in every state through these piped networks. So GST would really help because different taxes in different states and some states imposing high taxes doesn’t open up the gas sector for the entire country. However, this is a decision which is to be taken by the GST council and we hope that something would happen soon.”
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi is very keen on building a gas-based economy for this country. He has mentioned this in his speeches several times,” he added.
On Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) divestment, he pointed out, “That is a process which is with the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM). From our side, all I can say is that government is keen and we are moving ahead and the role of the ministry is to provide the information which is required to assist DIPAM in this massive exercise that is going on because BPCL is a huge company.”
With regards to biofuel plants, he mentioned, “The first step is to get the companies to sign up to set up this plant. Our target for this financial year is that we will have a letter of intents for 1,500 plants. We have issued a letter of intents for over 1,000 and around 300 more applications are there which are being processed. Hopefully, in the next two-three days, they will be issued. Then we hope that we will reach the figure of 1,500.”
“Besides these 1,500, we have also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoUs) for around 2,000 more plants which are broad MoUs, which means that the interest is there in the market. The scheme is new, so around 10 plants are commissioned right now,” Kapoor added.
Source from: https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/gas-under-gst-will-help-sector-and-enhance-consumption-petroleum-secy-8627701.htm