International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday asked India to free up its pricing of natural gas and unbundling of marketing and transportation business to help increase usage of the fuel in the economy.
IEA in the India Gas Market Report: Outlook to 2030 projected the country's gas consumption rising by 60 per cent to 103 billion cubic metres (bcm) annually by the end of the decade.
As India targets raising the share of relatively cleaner natural gas in its energy basket to 15 per cent by 2030 from just above 6 per cent currently, IEA prescribed a set of policy reforms to usher in its greater use.
Pricing of gas, which is used to generate electricity, make fertilisers and turned into CNG to power automobiles and piped to household kitchens for cooking, is skewed. Gas from legacy fields of state-owned firms like ONGC and Oil India Ltd is currently capped at USD 6.5 per million British thermal unit while there are limits also imposed on fuel from difficult and high costing fields lik