Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, Jun 28, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, Jun 28, 2002 |
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Industry & Economy
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Fertilisers Panel to fix `reasonable' energy norms for urea units Our Bureau
NEW DELHI, June 27 THE Centre has constituted an expert committee under the former Secretary, Department of Fertilisers, Mr A.V. Gokak, to fix `reasonable' norms for energy consumption for the fertiliser industry, particularly urea units. The expert committee's constitution comes even as a Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Mr K.C. Pant, is already looking into formulating a long-term urea pricing policy. An official release stated here today that the newly formed expert policy is `likely' to submit its report in August. "The report would assist in the formulation of the new pricing policy for urea units and would usher major structural reforms primarily recognising efficiency norms,'' the release added. The constitution of the new committee has been justified on grounds that it is a follow-up to the Expenditure Reforms Commission's (ERC) recommendation to fix reasonable norms for energy consumption by fertiliser units. At present, energy consumption by urea manufacturing units was very high, leading to higher production cost and subsidy outgo from the exchequer. The ERC report had also envisaged that urea plants would move towards targeted performance in terms of energy norms and reduction in capital-related charges. "Any rationalisation in energy consumption in fertiliser industry will lead to rationalisation of subsidy'', the release pointed out. Apart from Mr Gokak, the expert committee's members include the former Director-General of the Fertiliser Association of India (FAI), Mr Pratap Narayan, the Executive Director (Technical) of Iffco, Mr V.K. Bali, the former Chief Advisor in the Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices (BICP), Mr C. Ramaswamy, and the former Adviser (Finance) in the Department of Fertilisers, Dr G.B. Purohit. Mr M.R. Sharma, Deputy Secretary in the Department of Fertilisers, will be the member-secretary. While recommending energy consumption norms, the committee would also examine the desirability of feedstock/technology-based efficient energy levels and possible steps to achieve international standards. The committee will also suggest mechanisms for determining the escalation and de-escalation in feedstock costs for various units/groups. Further, it has been entrusted to look into feedstock differential cost to various non-gas based units, keeping in view the likely scenario vis-a-vis availability, pricing and infrastructure required for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and "of suggesting a mechanism for treatment of substitution of feedstock due to non-availability of gas/LNG, etc''.
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