Having consistently pitched for capping of gas price for the electricity sector at $5 per mmBtu, Power Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday said that his ministry would approach the Cabinet soon to achieve the objective.
The ministry, he added, will also seek Cabinet's nod for providing an independent transmission regulator status to Power System Operation Corporation limited (POSOCO), currently an arm of state-run Power Grid.
“We will soon approach the Cabinet for fixing the price of gas at $5 per mmBtu (Million Metric British thermal unit) for the power sector,” the minister said while interacting with media persons.
Scindia said the Government has made it clear that any additional gas produced in the country will be diverted to the power sector only after the requirements of the fertiliser sector are met.
last month, he had said that power projects would get the surplus gas until March 2016, after which the situation will be reviewed again. The decision would benefit projects with a combined capacity of over 7,800 MW, the minister had added.
The Power Ministry had sought parity for electricity utilities with fertiliser units in the allocation of gas after a drop in output from Reliance Industries' KG-D6 block led to reduced domestic supplies. In March this year, electricity generating stations stopped getting gas from KG-D6.