GAIL (India) Ltd, the nation’s biggest natural gas distributor, is likely to pay 100 per cent or Rs 10 per share dividend to shareholders in the current fiscal.

GAIL, which is slated to announce the third quarter earnings on Wednesday, may split this dividend into two — a 90 per cent or Rs 9 per share interim dividend and the balance as final dividend at the end of the fiscal.

According to officials, the company had in the 2012-13 fiscal paid a total dividend of Rs 9.60 per share — Rs 4 per share interim dividend announced on February 20, 2013, and Rs 5.60 final dividend on September 7.

“GAIL will maintain the dividend payout at Rs 10 this fiscal,” an official said.

The company, which has a cash balance of Rs 1,700 crore, will pay the government Rs 700-crore dividend this fiscal, almost unchanged from the previous year. The Government holds 57.34 per cent stake in GAIL.

GAIL, the officials said, has planned a capital expenditure of Rs 3,105 crore in early part of 2014-15, mostly on laying new gas pipelines.

This compares to Rs 3,247-crore planned capex for the second quarter of the current fiscal. For the full fiscal 2013-14, GAIL had planned Rs 7,511-crore capex, but this is unlikely to be met because of regulatory hurdles delaying the pipeline projects in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, they said.

GAIL, which paid Rs 700 crore towards diesel and cooking fuel subsidies in the first half of the current fiscal, will not have to pay any more fuel subsidy in the remainder of the year.

“The Petroleum Ministry has conveyed that GAIL’s share of subsidy will be capped at Rs 700 crore for the current fiscal. So, there will be no more subsidy payouts in 2013-14,” an official said.

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