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5 kg gas cylinder for the poor from Aug 16

Shahid K Abbas in New Delhi

The Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Ram Naik on Tuesday announced that the sale of 5 per cent ethanol-doped petrol known as 'gasohol' would be mandatory from January 1, 2003 in nine States and four Union Territories, including Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and the Union Territories are Chandigarh, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Pondicherry.

The rest of the country would be covered in second phase, he said.

Speaking at the meeting of parliamentary consultative committee attached to his ministry, on Monday, Naik said, "This significant decision was part of the government's efforts to reduce the oil import dependency. It would also benefit sugarcane growers in these states and Union Territories that form part of the first phase of introducing gasohol throughout the country."

Naik also informed the committee members that to facilitate use of liquefied petroleum gas by people in the hills, far-flung areas and by the economically weaker sections of the society, 5-kg LPG cylinder was being launched on August 16, 2002 from Shimla.

"This special gift of the oil industry PSUs on the occasion of the Independence Day would not only facilitate easier transportation as the conventional cylinder weighs about 30 kgs, but also come cheaper. The deposit for a 5 kg cylinder would be Rs 350, as compared to Rs 700 for the 14.2-kg cylinder."

"Similarly, the 5-kg cylinder refill would cost less than Rs 100 as against about Rs 250 per cylinder for a 14.2 kg cylinder," he explained.

Discussing the performance of oil public sector units during 2001-02, the members appreciated the efforts of oil PSUs in maintaining their track record of good performance.

The 12 PSUs under the ministry of petroleum & natural gas together recorded a profit-after tax of Rs 12,749.53 crore (Rs 127.495 billion) as against the paid up capital of Rs 5,204 crore (Rs 52.04 billion) during this period.

The profit-after tax was Rs 11,824.87 crore (Rs 118.248 billion) in the previous year.

The committee members who attended the meeting included Laxman Seth, M H Gavit, Shibu Soren, Jai Prakash, K K Kaliappan, Ram Sajivan, Lal Bihari Tiwari, Jaswant Singh Bishnoi, Dr Laxminarayan Pandey, Manibhai R Chaudhari, Prof Rasa Singh Rawat, Shrichand Kriplani, Ram Shakal, Ram Singh Kaswan, N H Diwathe, Kishan Singh Sangwan, Col D R Shandil, Dr Sushil Kumar Indora, Zora Singh Mann, Prasanna Acharya, Prakash Paranjape, Ram Jeevan Singh, Dr Sudha Yadav, Shyam Bihari Mishra and Harpal Singh Sathi from Lok Sabha.

The members from the Rajya Sabha who attended include N R Dasari, Prof Ram Deo Bhandari, A Vijaya Raghavan, Dr Arun Kumar Sharma, R N Arya, Prof Ram Bakhsh Singh Verma, Amar Singh, Satish Pradhan, and Ram Nath Kobind.

Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Santosh Kumar Gangwar, secretary, ministry of petroleum & natural gas B K Chaturvedi, and special secretary in the ministry Naresh Narad also attended the meeting among other senior officers of the ministry, CMDs and senior officers of oil PSUs.

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