The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, on Tuesday, approved a major policy intervention, to supply gas at uniform delivered price to all fertilizer plants on the gas grid for production of urea, through a pooling mechanism. 

According to the Department of Fertilizer (DOF) estimates, this decision will lead to additional production of around 37.13 lakh MT of urea in existing fertilisers units over the next four years. This will reduce import dependence to this extent and result in saving of ₹ 1550 crore of subsidy, the statement added. 

CCEA also approved allocation of ₹ 4948 crore for Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) to the scheme for the Indian Strategic Storage Programme for Storage of Crude Oil by Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Limited (ISPRL). 

It said that the entire cost for filling crude oil in Visakhapatnam cavern will be met by the Government of India, while the remaining amount would be used for filling up the strategic part of the caverns which are being constructed at Mangalore and Padur. “The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas will continue to explore alternative models for financing the remaining cost of crude oil to fill the Mangalore and Padur caverns. This will include commercial utilization by other interested parties,” the official statement said. 

The CCEA also approved the change in the definition of a ‘Private Sector Company’ in the guidelines for financial support to Public Private Partnerships in Infrastructure under the Viability Gap Funding Scheme (VGF Scheme). This has been done to remove any ambiguity in interpretation of the term ‘Private Sector Company’ and to align it with the definition of ‘Government Company’ at of the Companies Act.

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