Denying allegations of discriminatory treatment to small industries in South Gujarat, public sector gas utility GAIL (India) on Wednesday said that the recent revision in APM gas allocation in the region was in keeping with the guidelines issued by the ministry of petroleum and natural gas.
According to an official communiqué, GAIL said cut in the administered pricing mechanism (APM) gas supplies was “done transparently and that the affected customers were informed in advance.”
It said that “gas supply of up to 5,000 scmd kept out of pro-rata cut as per ministry guidelines to protect the interests of small consumers”. It went on to state that 6 lakh plus households in South Gujarat alone would benefit from reallocation of gas in terms of cooking gas supplies.
“It is being clarified that allegations made by a section of people on cut in APM gas supplies are not true and there has not been any arbitrary or selective reduction in allocations to small industrial customers in South Gujarat,” the release said.
GAIL also maintained that these changes have also impacted gas supplies to GAIL’s own petrochemical plant, which is undergoing a cut of up to 88% as against its allocation.
It may be mentioned that the changes in allocation of APM gas supplies have hit production work of 30 industries of South Gujarat which were forced to partly shut down their operations. These industries have been alleging that reducing the gas from small consumers singularly from within Gujarat and diverting it to city gas is discriminatory especially when the priority of both sectors was equal.
