Shah panel to submit report on ONGC-RIL gas dispute by Aug 31
Government has extended by one month the tenure of A P Shah Committee looking into the dispute over natural gas migrating from state-owned ONGC’s idle blocks in KG basin to neighbouring fields of Reliance Industries. The Committee will now submit its report by August 31, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said today. “Government constituted a single member committee comprising of Ajit Prakash Shah former Chief Justice of DELHI High Court on December 15, 2015 to look into the dispute between RIL and ONGC regarding ONGC blocks (KG-DWN-98/2 & Godavari PML) and RIL block (KG-DWN-98/3) in Krishna Godavari basin,” he said in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha here. The Committee was to submit its report by July 31. “However, considering the volume of work involved and complexity of the issue, the Committee has sought extension till August 31, 2016 for submission of the report which has been agreed by the Government,” he said. The panel is looking into “acts of omission and commission” as well as compensation to ONGC. “Terms of References (TORs) to the committee includes looking into the issue of gas migration and give its recommendations in this regard,” he said. Pradhan said the committee has conducted hearings and has taken written submission from all stakeholders. “The next course of action will be decided by the government after getting the recommendations of the Committee,” he said. It has been asked to “quantify the unfair enrichment, if any, to the contractors of the adjacent block KG-DWN-98/3 (KG-D6) and measures to prevent future unfair enrichment to these contractors on account of gas migration.” It has also been asked to “recommend action to be taken to make good the loss to ONGC/government on account of such unfair enrichment to the contractors.” RIL has 60 per cent interest in KG-D6 block, while Niko holds 10 per cent stake. BP holds the remaining 30 per cent. DeGolyer and MacNaughton (D&M), had in its November 30 report, established that reservoirs in ONGC’s Krishna Godavari basin KG-DWN-98/2 (KG-D5) and the Godavari-PML are connected with Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1 & D3) field located in the KG-DWN- 98/3 (KG-D6) Block of RIL. It states that as much as 11.122 billion cubic meters of ONGC gas has migrated from Godavari-PML and KG-DWN-98/2 to KG-D6. Of the 58.68 bcm of gas produced from KG-D6 block since April 1, 2009, 49.69 bcm belongs to RIL and 8.981 bcm could have come from ONGC’s side, D&M said. Fran Tarkenton Authentic Jersey
4 SEZ developers seek cancellation of their projects
Four Special Economic Zone (SEZ) developers including Broadway Integrated Park and Veritas Infrastructure Development have approached the government to surrender their projects. These applications would be considered by the Board of Approval (BoA) headed by Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia on August 12. The BoA is a 19-member inter-ministerial body that deals with SEZ-related matters. “Formal approval has been granted (to these 4 SEZs) by the department of commerce. However, since there is no significant progress made by the developer, the concerned development commissioners have proposed for cancellation of formal approval granted to the developer,” BoA said in its agenda. While the two SEZ projects are in IT/ITeS sector, the other two are in the bio technology area. Broadway Integrated Park and Veritas Infrastructure Development had proposed to set up an IT and biotechnology SEZ respectively in Maharashtra. The other two developers who have approached for cancellation of their projects are Muttha Realty and Saloni Business Park. SEZs are export hubs which contribute about 16 per cent to the country’s total outbound shipments. The Commerce Ministry is taking steps to revive investors interest in these zones. It has asked the Finance Ministry to extend sops like rollback or reduction in the minimum alternate tax. Exports from these zones logged a marginal growth of 0.77 per cent to Rs 4.67 lakh crore in 2015-16. It was Rs 4.63 lakh crore in 2014-15. Al-Farouq Aminu Authentic Jersey
Focus on the Right Infrastructure First: NYC Chief Digital Officer
The newly appointed chief digital officer (CDO) of New York City, Sree Srinivasan, said that while going digital is important, India should first focus on setting up and smoothening out the infrastructure issues that they face. “There are parts of India where people don’t have their own garbage pickup. People are burning garbage and then people ask for 4G (connections). (In that case) you’re focused on the wrong G. Until people are not disposing their own garbage, until people are scavenging on their head, that’s what you should focus on, but everybody is instead focusing on this side,” he told ET. Srinivasan, who has earlier been the CDO at his alma mater Columbia University, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is on an India-wide tour with Twitter, talking about the importance of using social media and different online platforms effectively. His appointment as the CDO of New York City was tweeted by the mayor Bill de Blasio on August 1: “Welcome, @sree, as NYC’s new CDO! And onward to becoming the most tech-friendly, transparent, digitally equitable city in the world.” Srinivasan said his job description was “so clear, so simple and so scary. How do you do all of that?” “Look at the New York City Digital Playbook. It’s our roadmap on how New York City (will do digital) – it doesn’t mean that’s exactly how India needs to be, but somewhere in there is the right way for India to be as well,” he said, when asked what India can learn from the US experience of cities going digital. At a select gathering on Thursday, Srinivasan spoke about how to leverage the best of existing and new social media and online channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google. He said that his endeavour is to use mobile as much as possible, and that he has used his laptop only for about 18 minutes since his new appointment as NYC’s CDO. He also set a kind of a new record when he insisted on doing an entire interview on WhatsApp for a news website a week ago. One of his takeaways from the India experience is the way customer service is being done through Twitter and how India is using SMS to get around connectivity issues. Kai Forbath Womens Jersey
Parliament committee ‘partly blames’ NHAI for NPAs in road sector
The Parliament’s Standing Committee on Transport on Tuesday raised several questions on the functioning of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), hinting that some of its policies were the reasons leading to bad debts piling in the road sector. The criticism comes when banks and concessionaires are being blamed by the government for non performing assets, or NPAs. The committee in its report Infrastructure Lending in Road Sector presented to Parliament said that there are several issues with the NHAI like underestimating project costs, bad planning and showing haste in awarding projects to developers. It said that various stake holders complained that the NHAI underestimates the project costs and the concessionaires who bid out a project on L1 basis approaches banks and financial institutions with an inflated project cost for taking loans. L1 refers to lowest bidder. The committee said that it finds strange that there is a big gap between the cost calculated by NHAI and the banks for the same project. While blaming NHAI, the committee also directed the authority to keep a watch over the excess loan amount over the estimated cost obtained by the concessionaire from the bank. “Why the concessionaire has been given a free hand to get the banks’ loan as per their wish?” said the committee headed by Member of Parliament of Trinamool Congress Kanwar Deep Singh. NHAI in its statement on the report said, “We, at NHAI maintain high level of due diligence and follow all the processes which go through various government committees for clearances.” Observing the NPA percentages of various banks in the road sector, the committee observed that for IDBI Bank the NPA percentage is as high as 52% of the total loan disbursed for the road sector and a large portion of this huge amount are NPAs, that too lent to a single concessionaire, Jaypee Infratech Ltd. However, responding to committee’s observation, a senior banker at IDBI requesting anonymity said, “We have about Rs.7,900 crore worth of exposure to the road sector, about 95? of this is fund based. In this, three cases with aggregate loans worth Rs.380 crore are NPAs as of now. The total exposure of the bank in Jaypee Infratech would be around Rs.3,800 crore, which turned into NPA owing to the RBI’s asset quality review (AQR).” He added that it would be unfair to club Jaypee Infratech case in the road sector since the repayment of the loans is dependent on development of 6,700 acres worth land surrounding the road project. “Hence, we have classified the account as a real estate project,” he said. The report pointed out that State Bank of India has lent Rs.19,502 crore, out of which Rs.1,986 crore has turned into NPA and the Parliament committee was worried about the higher percentage of loan becoming NPA. The committee said that the banks should do due diligence while disbursing loans to concessionaires. During the consultation process of the report, the committee was informed that NPAs totalled Rs.2.6 trillion from defaulting infrastructure projects and that by the end of 2015-16, it is estimated to go up to more than Rs.4 trillion. However, the committee appreciated the steps being undertaken by the NHAI in last few months and recommended that model concession agreement of the NHAI may be circulated to all the banks and financial institutions. Bobby Portis Womens Jersey
Government to construct 1,000-km expressway at Rs 16,680 crore
Government will construct 1,000 km of expressways under its flagship road building programme NHDP at a cost of Rs 16,680 crore, Parliament was informed today. “Government of India has approved a plan for constructing 1,000 km of expressways under National Highways Development Project (NHDP) Phase VI at a cost of Rs 16,680 crore on design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) basis,” Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said in a written reply to Lok Sabha. The main criteria for selection of expressway corridors will be the traffic volume and it was approved that the highest density corridor i.e. Vadodara-Mumbai Corridor (400 km) to be given top priority and considered for feasibility study, the Minister said. It was also decided that remaining 600 km will be selected out of the routes identified on the basis of traffic volume. “”The high density corridors under NHDP Phase VI are – Vadodara-Mumbai corridor (400 km) in Gujarat and Maharashtra, Delhi-Meerut (66 km) on NH 58 in Delhi and UP, Bangalore-Chennai (334 km) on NH 4 in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu… “…Delhi-Jaipur (261 km) on NH 8 in Delhi and Rajasthan, Delhi-Chandigarh (249 km) on NH 1 and NH 22 (now changed to Delhi, Punjab and J&K, Kolkata-Dhanbad (277 km) on NH 2 in West Bengal and Jharkhand and Delhi-Agra (200 km) on NH 2 in Delhi and UP,” Gadkari said. Out of 66 km length of Delhi-Meerut Expressway, 30.63 km has already been awarded in 2 packages and contract agreement is executed, he said. In addition, the government has approved to take up one more expressway – Eastern Peripheral Expressway – for a length of 135 km in 6 packages, the Minister added. Thomas Greiss Authentic Jersey
Hydro Capacity Addition During Last Two Years
Nine Hydro Electric Projects, with a total capacity of 2357 MW, were commissioned during the last two years, and the current year, till 31.07.2016, in various states of the country. Out of these 9 projects, three projects were partially commissioned during this period. This was stated by Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy and Mines,said. Further, the Minister stated that as on 30.6.2016 the Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) of 15 Hydro Electric schemes with a total Installed Capacity of 8,457 MW have been received by various appraising Groups in CEA/CWC/GSI/CSMRS for examination.The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) is reviewing these projects regularly with various appraising agencies and project developers for expeditious appraisal of DPRs. Eric Gryba Womens Jersey
Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas ensures dispatch of loaded trucks on open wagons to Tripura to mitigate fuel crisis
The supply of Petroleum products to Tripura has been severely affected due to heavy rains and washing away of the Highway- NH 44, leading to the state. Reaching fuel to the rain ravaged state has become a herculean task after a large portion of the road had been washed away. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, after a thorough review on the availability of POL products in the state, has paved the way for movement of petroleum products by rail to mitigate the impending crisis. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in deliberations with the Ministry of Railways has organized the transportation of POL products through RORO (Roll On Roll Off), wherein the trucks carrying bulk products and LPG cylinders are loaded on open railway wagons for fuel movement. The rake carrying Indian oil trucks was flagged off from Bhanga, Assam to reach Chraibari, Tripura today. This is the first such initiative of such kind in North east. Simultaneously, Indian oil trucks are also being re-routed through the alternate circuitous route, reserved exclusively for POL and LPG movement. Traditionally, Indian Oil supplies POL products to Tripura from its Depot at Dharmanagar, Tripura. Since October, 2014, the products are received at Dharmanagar depot from Guwahati depot by road, due to suspension of rail movement caused by track conversion from Metre gauge to Broad gauge. Though The Railways has restored the section for passenger traffic, the POL movement has not yet been restored. New York Mets Womens Jersey
Rs 35,000-cr PPP investment in Railways
Investment of over ?35,000 crore has been committed for various projects through public-private partnership in Railways, the Lok Sabha was informed today. Some of the areas identified by Railways for investment through the PPP route are building last mile connectivity for ports/mines/industrial clusters, setting up of manufacturing units for rolling stock, building Private Freight Terminals (PFT), procurement of wagons, private operation of containers trains and redevelopment of stations among others, Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain said in a written reply to a question. Elandon Roberts Womens Jersey
Road maintenance policy on the anvil in Kerala
A slew of measures, including a road maintenance policy, is to be rolled out to ensure proper maintenance of roads under the Public Works Department (PWD) and to prevent illegal and unscientific digging of corridors. While the government will take time to come out with a maintenance policy, the PWD has decided to designate a Chief Engineer (CE) as CE (Maintenance) to ensure maintenance of the roads. The CE will be provided supporting staff and infrastructure. Announcing this at a press conference here on Wednesday, Minister for Public Works G. Sudhakaran said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has given the nod for the road maintenance policy. Necessary equipment will be purchased after consulting Finance Minister T. M. Thomas Isaac to ensure that potholes are filled and roads repaired soon. Henceforth, the detailed project report being prepared for road, building and bridge works executed by the PWD should have all the prescribed norms. The government will not allow revision of the sanctioned estimate for works. In addition to the three-year defect liability period, another four years of contract maintenance period will be launched. The Minister said utility ducts had been made mandatory in all new roads to prevent the digging of roads for laying cables and other utilities of the KSEB, BSNL and KWA. Covered drains with slabs will be another new feature of the roads. Cycle tracks will be provided in roads wherever land is available. Duron Harmon Jersey
Power department initiates checks on theft
Noida power department has initiated an exercise to assess increased power theft in villages by way of keeping track of power units used per feeder in villages across Gautam Budh Nagar. All junior engineers and sub-divisional officers are instructed to book any lineman or junior staff found indulging in, or helping in such power theft. According to Mukul Singhal, superintending engineer, PVVNL the grey area in Gautam Budh Nagar amounts to increased power theft and line losses of up to 18-19%. Mostly these occur in rural areas or villages across Noida. “The power theft across Noida and G B Nagar currently amounts to 18% -19% which is a grey area for us. That’s because it usually occurs in villages across Noida or rural areas of G B Nagar where unauthorised connections are found where meters are fiddled with, or cable drawn directly from the main line occurs. And we get to know about this when AC, fridge and other electronic appliances are used in these area/homes, yet the bills do not account for, or reflect their usage,” Singhal told TOI. To check such power thefts, Singhal has directed all junior engineers (JEs) and sub-divisional officers (SDOs) to keep a tab on the power units fed into the feeder that supplies power to any village or rural area. “We have initiated the process of keeping a tab on power units fed per feeder per village/rural area and the number of units used or consumed further from that feeder by the consumer of the area. The balance derived will account for the power theft occurring in the area,” said Singhal, who adds that usually the lineman and junior staff of such areas are hand-in-glove in such thefts and will be dealt with strictly once identified. “I’ve given strict instructions to all SDOs to keep a check on all feeders installed per village and maintain a log of energy consumed. Any anomaly by either a lineman or a consumer will be dealt with strictly to the tune of even a legal action if found guilty of theft,” said Singhal. Tahir Whitehead Womens Jersey