Govt moves Supreme Court, seeks rollback of CNG price

The plea pointed out that the apex court had directed the Centre to allocate CNG first to the transport sector in the polluting cities, including Delhi, and if any surplus was left thereafter, then the gas could be allocated to the industries.

“The respondents (government and ministry), however, are deliberately, consciously and contumaciously violating these directions in as much as the CNG is not being allocated to the priority sector to fulfill its needs in the entirety and in fact the CNG is being allocated to the industries without first exhausting the full requirements of the transport sector,” the plea alleged.

The petition claimed that owing to the government’s failure to allocate CNG to the transport sector, the distributor of CNG in Delhi, namely the Indraprashta Gas Ltd (IGL), was constrained to import gas at much higher prices, which in turn led to increase in the gas price.

“Due to increase in the prices of CNG, it has no longer remained an effective, cheaper and viable fuel mode option thereby defeating the very purpose and intention of the aforesaid directions of this Hon’ble Court,” the plea stated.

The Delhi government has asked for quashing the policy guidelines of November last, issued by the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, for supply of domestic natural gas and direct for allocating domestic natural gas at applicable domestic rates to fulfill the entire demand of the CNG (transport) and PNG (domestic) of the NCT of Delhi.

It has also asked for directing the ministry to restore the supply of domestic natural gas to IGL, for subsequent supply to the CNG (transport) and PNG (domestic) sector in the city.

The petition said that 90 per cent of the indigenously produced natural gas is earmarked for the industries and only about 8 per cent of the domestic production is allocated to CGD/CNG sector all over the country for utilisation in the transport and domestic sector.

It said Delhi requires more supply of the gas as there are about the 11,000 DTC buses and private operators, 76,440 three wheelers, about 34,205 taxis, which operate in Delhi on CNG. In addition to this, there are also about one lakh light goods vehicles (LGV) and about 4,50,000 private vehicles which operate on CNG, it said.