Pricing gas

The article, “ >The gas price conundrum ” (Feb.19), only strengthens the contention that 1.25 billion people of this country are being taken for a ride by a corporate giant with the tacit support of the UPA. It beats one how the price of a commodity produced and used within the country can be fixed in dollars.

Murli Nair,

Chennai

If we consider the KG-D6 gas field as a national asset, with all individual citizens being its stakeholders, the Government of India its custodian, and RIL the contractor responsible for producing gas and bringing it to the market, there cannot be any argument against cost-based pricing. The government should procure this gas from RIL by paying it in rupee terms, with the cost of production and transportation plus a gross profit that may be considered reasonable in the prevailing market conditions. The government may then determine the end customer price after taking into account factors like domestic demand, import parity and the socio-economic relevance of providing subsidy (if any) to various categories of customers.

Srijnan Sanyal,

Gurgaon

In the context of the influence of certain corporate houses in the petroleum/energy sector, it might be educative for readers to go through Madhav Godbole’s Unfinished Innings: Recollections and Reflections of a Civil Servant and S.S. Gill’s The Pathology of Corruption . Shunning speculation and conjecture, they provide an authentic background to the clout of the corporate world.

C. Antony Louis,

Mumbai