Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily faces fresh charges of making a renewed attempt to provide a huge gain to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries limited (RIl) by planning to increase the price of domestically produced natural gas.
CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta on Monday said Moily has again created a note advocating gas price hike for the perusal of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). In doing so, he has overruled the objections of the Petroleum Secretary and hushed up facts to favour the private company.
Addressing the media here, Dasgupta distributed the “dubious” notes of the Petroleum Minister and alleged that “Moily is spearheading the scam for Mukesh Ambani with the blessings of Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia.”
The CPI veteran alleged that Moily was just signing on a draft note prepared by Reliance Industries. He said as the Petroleum Secretary refused to sign on the note, Moily got the signature of a junior officer in the note prepared on May 27 and presented it before the CCEA.
“I urge Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to scrutinise the computer and e-mail communication of Moily. He will be caught for communicating with Mukesh Ambani and Reliance. This note (distributed to the media) is prepared by Reliance. His first attempt failed after my Press conference against gas pricing on May 23. Now Moily has come up with a new note. This has been prepared by Reliance and Moily has just forwarded it to the CCEA,” said Dasgupta.
Dasgupta said Finance Ministry officials admitted to the Standing Committee, which met the previous week that they had not yet prepared or estimated the cost of production figures of domestically produced natural gas.
“They told us that they were treating the increase in price of gas as incentivizing the investment of private contractors. This is the fraud. Why is the Government not calculating the cost of production of natural gasIJ If the cost of production is known, they can't pump money into the coffers of Reliance Industries,” he said.
Recently, Dasgupta had released several documents including notes of the Petroleum Ministry favouring a huge increase in the price of domestically produced gas.
The controversy started after the Rangarajan Committee suggested pricing the gas at $8 per mmbtu (Million Metric British Thermal Units). The largest users of natural gas - Fertilizer and Power Ministries - objected to the increase in gas price. The current purchase price is $4.2 per mmbtu. The allegations of favoritism towards RIl were ignited when Finance, Petroleum Ministries and the Planning Commission mooted pricing based on international export rates ranging between $10 to $14 per mmbtu. RIl could be the biggest beneficiary of this move.
Also releasing his new letter to the Prime Minister, Dasgupta said that Moily's attempts to form a new committee, the Kelkar Committee, was nothing but a sham. The CPI leader said the Prime Minister's failure to respond to the complaints sent by parliamentarians was unacceptable.
“What is the use of a Member of Parliament writing to the Prime Minister if the matter is not even enquired intoIJ You would recall that on the matter of the 2G spectrum allocation, I had written two letters to you. You forwarded them to the concerned Minister (A Raja) without having the matter enquired into. Ultimately a huge scam broke out in the matter. I am apprehensive that a similar fate awaits my letters in this matter,” said Dasgupta, in his letter to Singh.
“However the latest CCEA note (dated May 27), which is in my possession, reveals that the Petroleum Minister has made blatantly false statements to mislead the people of the country. He has ordered that import parity prices of $14 per mmbtu be given for the last two years of the five year period for which the formula is valid. This would mean humungous profits for RIl and a complete disaster for the country's economy,” said Dasgupta.
“I would also like to reiterate the dubious role played by the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission in this entire matter in suggesting prices far in excess of the Rangarajan Committee….Justifying higher prices as fresh incentives is an ill-disguised attempt to give huge profits to RIl and permit a loot of the country's natural resources. No study has been made to assess the actual cost of production and the huge returns that accrue to RIl. Both the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission have not bothered to study the huge impact on the power and fertilizer sectors due to price increase even at the level suggested by the Rangarajan Committee,” added the CPI veteran leader.