New Delhi, Oct 8 (KNN) Taking another significant move towards the futuristic reforms, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved ‘Natural Gas Marketing Reforms’ on Wednesday.

The objective of the policy is to prescribe standard procedure to discover market price of gas to be sold in the market by gas producers, through a transparent and competitive process, permit Affiliates to participate in bidding process for sale of gas and allow marketing freedom to certain Field Development Plans (FDPs) where Production Sharing Contracts already provide pricing freedom.

This will also help in creating employment opportunities in the gas consuming sectors including MSMEs and the domestic production will further help in increasing investment in the downstream industries such as City Gas Distribution and related industries.

The policy aims to provide standard procedure for sale of natural gas in a transparent and competitive manner to discover market price by issuing guidelines for sale by contractor through e-bidding. This will bring uniformity in the bidding process across the various contractual regimes and policies to avoid ambiguity and contribute towards ease of doing business.

The policy has also permitted Affiliate companies to participate in the bidding process in view of the open, transparent and electronic bidding. This will facilitate and promote more competition in marketing of gas. However, rebidding will have to be done in case only affiliates participate, and there are no other bidders.

The policy will also grant marketing freedom to the Field Development Plans (FDPs) of those Blocks in which Production Sharing Contracts already provide pricing freedom.

These reforms will build on a series of transformative reforms rolled out by the Government in last several years.

The reforms in gas sector will further deepen and spur the economic activities. These reforms will influence the whole eco-system of policies relating to production, infrastructure and marketing of natural gas has been made more transparent with a focus on ease of doing business.

The reforms will prove very significant for Atmanirbhar Bharat by encouraging investments in the domestic production of natural gas and reducing import dependence. It will be another milestone in moving towards a gas based economy by encouraging investments. The increased gas production consumption will help in improvement of environment.

The Government has taken transformative reforms in the upstream sector with a view to make investment easier focusing on ease of doing business. The Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) which is investor driven acreage auction process, has increased substantial acreages in the country.