Communist Party of India MP Gurudas Dasgupta on Friday urged Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh to direct the Petroleum Ministry to initiate proceedings against Reliance Industries Limited and its partners for termination of their contract for KG-D6 gasfields for ‘wilful default’ and violation of the production sharing contract (PSC).
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr. Dasgupta reiterated that the Petroleum Minister was “deliberately” trying to pass undue benefits to RIL, overruling his own officials and seeking to bend rules and regulations to bail out the corporate house.
“There have been repeated attempts by the Petroleum Minister to weaken government’s case in the arbitration proceedings [and] subvert national interest, and this should be stopped at all costs,” he told journalists here.
The Management Committee (MC) as well as the Director-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) had time and again comprehensively rejected RIL’s position on downgrading of gas reserves, approval of a revised field development plan and on the issue of appointment of international experts to ascertain the cause of decline in gas production from KG D6, Mr. Dasgupta said..
Further, the DGH had acted impartially and given his independent view on the shortfall in production. But “the Petroleum Minister is trying to transfer the present DGH prematurely since he has been taking an independent view in issues concerning RIL. I would like to reiterate that DGH should not be transferred before the completion of his three-year tenure,” says the MP’s letter.
Mr. Dasgupta said production from KG-D6 had fallen drastically to 9 mmscmd from the approved or promised level of 80 mmscmd. “RIL has refused to drill additional number of wells as directed by the government to shore up production and are putting forward false causes for the decline in reserves. In view of these circumstances, the only alternative with the government to terminate the contract, as per Article 30 of the PSC, without any further delay.”
