State Bank of India (SBI), in a report on Friday, claimed a significant decline in the headline poverty ratio in rural areas on account of enhanced physical infrastructure, higher consumption growth in the bottom fractile and direct benefit transfers (DBTs).
The Palaniswami government is expected to utilise the Rangarajan Committee's recommendations before the 2021 assembly election.
Not only does there appear to be no meeting ground on the issue of a pricing formula proposed by the committee, the petroleum ministry wants another committee headed by Vijay Kelkar to look into the other major recommendation of moving to the revenue sharing model in exploration and production.
Main difference has been on including people above the poverty line in the Food Security Bill.
The ministry had sent a draft proposal for the consideration of the Empowered Group of Ministers to price all domestically produced natural gas -- be of state-run ONGC or private sector Reliance Industries - as per the formula suggested by the Rangarajan Committee.
Concerns on lower natural gas transmission, LPG rate cut & APM gas price hike might be priced in but no positive triggers
The Ministry in a draft Cabinet note proposed accepting in toto the Rangarajan Committee recommendation of pricing domestically produced natural gas at an average of international hub prices and cost of imported LNG instead of present mechanism of market discovery.
Former army chief V K Singh on Friday backed a farmers body's demand for rejection of the Rangarajan Committee report on freeing the sugar sector and threatened to 'gherao' the Parliament next month if it is not met.
The price would increase from $4.2/mbtu to $10/mbtu if Rangarajan formula is accepted.
The six-member panel, which submitted its report to the Prime Minister's Office on December 20, is believed to have suggested pricing of natural gas based on weighted average of the fuel in North America, Europe and Japan markets as well as imported liquefied natural gas.
The government is trying to promote infrastructure development through PPP projects and has suggested the state should pick projects under this mode in a big way.
Around 6,000 sugarcane farmers from across India held a massive protest in national capital New Delhi against the controversial Rangarajan Committee report. Former Army Chief V K Singh joined issue with the farmers and declared war against the government. Priyanka reports
Food Min says decision on Rangarajan panel's report in a time bound manner.
The Rangarajan Committee recommends that mills should be able to sell their sugar in the open market.
The government recently announced a new formula for determining the price of natural gas, lowering it from $8.4 suggested by the C Rangarajan committee.
In a surprise move, the Ministry had on October 10 moved a note to the Empowered Group of Ministers opposing a hike in price of RIL's KG-D6 gas before April 2014 even though the company itself was not seeking a revision before that date.
The accounting system of the central and state governments may change considerably, with a high-level committee suggesting sweeping changes in how expenditure is classified in Budget documents.
The government is likely to give a legal right to food to both priority and general categories of the population under the proposed National Food Security Act, as suggested by the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC).
The government is aiming to reach out to nearly 1.50 lakh youth in Jammu and Kashmir based on a plan submitted by an expert panel highlighting the vast untapped potential for employment generation in the state, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday said.
The new rates, which are likely to be at $8-8.4 against the current price of $4.2 per million British thermal unit, are based on the recommendations of a committee that was appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the request of Moily's predecessor, S Jaipal Reddy.
Moreover, the absence of a liquid market for various types of assets also makes such estimation inappropriate, it said. One of the terms of reference of the committee was to examine if corporate saving estimation should be done on an MTM basis. MTM refers to the present value of assets based on their market prices.
Sugar prices in October were Rs 36-37 a kg, from where they fell by Rs 8-9 per kg.
While markets are upbeat over the government decision to nearly double the price of domestically produced natural gas, industry wants it to clearly lay the roadmap for free market pricing regime.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may convene a meeting of Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Oil Minister Murli Deora within a week to discuss fuel pricing and taxation regime on the sensitive products.
The new government on June 25 decided to defer the implementation till September-end to hold wider consultations.
The 14-member task-force will develop a working definition of poverty.
Cabinet may tweak Rangarajan formula; new price may be further delayed.
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Wednesday asserted in the Supreme Court that it did not receive any favour from the government in the contract for exploration of oil and gas from Krishna-Godavari basin.
PM Modi on Sunday called upon states to "speed up capital expenditure and infrastructure creation" to spur economic growth.
Could get $8.4 per mmBtu from April 2014 by furnishing bank guarantee that would be encashed if D1, D3 gas hoarding proved
EC on Monday asked the government to defer notifying doubling of price of the fuel produced by companies such as Reliance Industries till general elections are completed.
He added every dollar rise in the gas price will result in Rs 4,000 crore of revenue and Rs 2,300 crore in profit after tax.
Last week, RIL and urea companies failed to settle the key terms of gas supply from April 1 upon expiry of the five-year contracts that priced gas from the eastern offshore KG-D6 fields at $4.205 per million British thermal units.
Experts believe scrapping some projects is likely to bring some stability in road sector.
The Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas in a report tabled in Parliament said the proposed formula is a simple average of two methodologies -- price of imports of LNG into India by different suppliers, and weighted average of prices of natural gas prevailing at Henry Hub in USA, National Balancing Point in London and netback import price at the well head of suppliers into Japan.
Reliance Industries has made drastic changes in gas supply contracts that will jack up its KG-D6 gas price by 10 per cent over and above the new rate of $8.3 coming into effect from next month.
The move is likely to force the government to take a faster decision.
The Oil Ministry has proposed raising natural gas prices by at least 60 per cent, a move that will result in rise in urea as well as power costs.
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