Centre delinks NTPC from Anil

New Delhi
Aug. 25: The government has finally decided to clarify in the Supreme Court that the NTPC case is different from that of the Reliance Natural Resources Ltd and should be treated differently.
It has also clarified that the decision taken by the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on the gas pricing is without prejudice to the NTPC case against the Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL).
The finance, petroleum, power and law ministers met on Tuesday to decide the government’s stand on the gas pricing so that the interest of state-owned NTPC is not hurt.
The government will tell the Supreme Court that as NTPC is a government-owned company, it can take a different view as compared to its stand in case of Mr Anil Ambani’s firm RNRL.
The government is likely to tell the Supreme Court that the deal between RIL and NTPC is only for a fraction of the gas from D6 block in the KG basin. The government believes that RIL and RNRL agreement will leave less gas for other important sectors. Also, the government will say that the gas price for the NTPC was discovered through global competitive tender unlike RIL-RNRL deal which was a family MoU.
“As far as the NTPC-RIL dispute is concerned, all that is needed is that the contract validity between the two should be proved,” said sources. NTPC will not file any petition in the Supreme Court to be made a party in the RIL-RNRL case as was earlier anticipated, said sources.
An eGoM had decided that RIL gas from D6 should be sold at a price of $4.20 per mmBtu. Howe-ver, even before the eGoM decision, NTPC had won a RIL tender to get the gas for $2.34 per mmBtu.
After the meeting, the law minister, Mr Verappa Moily, said the NTPC issue had been sorted out and there will be no more meetings of the ministers. He said that as the petroleum ministry has already filed a special leave petition (SLP) and “if any amendment is to be filed they will do it.”