By IANS
New Delhi : The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Tuesday asked the government to reject the “artificially inflated” price proposed by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) for the gas produced from its Krishna Godavari basin field.
The pricing of natural resources like gas should not be left to market forces, and the government should decide on a price based on “actual production costs plus reasonable profit”, the CPI-M said in a statement, seeking intervention of the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) that is currently considering the issue.
Referring to the RIL proposal to market gas at $4.33 dollars per million metric British thermal unit (mmbtu), the CPI-M said this was not consistent with the price of $2.34 the company had quoted in 2004 for selling gas to the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC).
“Even if the price quoted in 2004 through competitive bidding is indexed to the present, it (the government) can in no way allow an 85 per cent hike as RIL has done while fixing the price at $4.33 mmbtu. The RIL proposition is thus an artificially inflated one and should be rejected,” the CPI-M said.
The EGoM, headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, is slated to meet here Thursday to take a final view on the matter. The last three meetings of the panel proved inconclusive.