India's main inflation measure, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), is set for another major update, even though it has been in its current form for only about 15 years.
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.
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 Rangarajan Committee recommends that mills should be able to sell their sugar in the open market.
The price would increase from $4.2/mbtu to $10/mbtu if Rangarajan formula is accepted.
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.
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.
With the dissolution of former chief statistician Pronab Sen-led Standing Committee on Statistics (SCoS) by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the National Statistical Commission (NSC) has regained prominence as the primary statistical body to address issues regarding results, methodology and questionnaire, among others. A MoSPI official in an email informed the 16-member SCoS about the decision to dissolve it, citing that its work was "overlapping" with that of the Steering Committee for National Sample Surveys (NSS), which was set up in June this year.
Main difference has been on including people above the poverty line in the Food Security Bill.
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 committee will suggest an action plan for abolishing the present system of classifying expenditure into plan and non-plan, an official statement said.
Finance, oil ministry tussle over exports.
The Planning Commission in May 2012 had constituted the expert group under the then Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan to review the Tendulkar Committee methodology for estimating poverty, following an uproar over the number of poor in the country.
The IIP growth has been revised downwards to 1.14 per cent for January, from the provisional estimates of 6.8 per cent, according to the official data released on Wednesday.
Food Min says decision on Rangarajan panel's report in a time bound manner.
The finance ministry has rejected the formula and, instead, suggested an alternative that takes into account well-head prices of suppliers in Qatar, Oman, Abu Dhabi and Malaysia.
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.
Based on the panel's formula, the base price of domestic natural gas comes to around $7.4 per million British thermal unit (mBtu), but the pricing formula proposed by RIL, officials say, translates the price into $13-14 an mBtu.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 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 government on June 25 decided to defer the implementation till September-end to hold wider consultations.
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.
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.
Rangarajan, who was answering questions on onion prices touching Rs 100 per kg in some cities, said the impact on inflation would not last long.
The 14-member task-force will develop a working definition of poverty.
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.
'If because of El Nino, the monsoon is affected adversely in the current year, naturally it will affect income projections and consequently Budget numbers.'
Road developers hoping for early relief from the government will have to wait longer.
Sugar prices in October were Rs 36-37 a kg, from where they fell by Rs 8-9 per kg.
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