Hyderabad, Aug 12:-
The Communist Party of India Parliamentary Party Leader, Mr Guru Das Das Gupta, on Wednesday alleged that both the Centre and state government are planning to privatize the oil and gas resources in the Krishna-Godavari (K-G) basin.
Inaugurating AITUC training classes for members here, he said that the gas reserves in K-G basin should meet the requirements of Andhra Pradesh before being exported to other States like Gujarat, where a cylinder costs just Rs 100 against Rs 300 in our State.
He alleged that the Centre was harming the interests of Andhra Pradesh in this regard.
He advised the Andhra MPs to mount pressure on it to get justice done to the State.
He said that the State should get its due share of the gas discovered in K-G basin by Reliance Industries and State-owned enterprises and it should be sold at cheap prices.
He said that gas could be supplied through pipelines to local areas at a price lesser than is being currently shelled down by the consumers.
Besides, the gas can be used for power generation, which would meet the needs of farm sector and households to a large extent, thus reducing dependency on conventional power, he added.
The State Government should take the initiative and influence the Central Government to ensure that AP interests’ are not sacrificed for pure commercial reasons, which should not happen if the region were to develop further keeping pace with the time, he pointed out.