Gas supply contracts should be at govt's discretion: AP CM

Excerpts from Reporter's Diary on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show » Nifty BSE | NSE 29/05/12 Are Mutual Funds betting on Nifty?

The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, YS Rajasekhar Reddy, has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding that all gas supply contracts be subordinate to the government's decision. He has pointed out that family contracts cannot influence government decisions. CNBC-TV18's Nayantara Rai reports.

Here is a verbatim transcript of Nayantara Rai's comments on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

On July 4, the Andhra Pradesh CM wrote an emotional letter to the Prime Minister in which he brought out the point that monopoly by a few private developers cannot beat the spirit of the directive principles laid out by state policy. He has asked that all gas supply contracts be it between the Ambani brothers as well as the GSPA signed by Reliance Industries with fertiliser companies, power companies etc, be subordinate to the decision by the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM). He goes on to say that he is very apprehensive that the upcoming litigation in the Supreme Court (SC) between RIL and RNRL could defeat the very principle laid out by the EGoM and he is asking the government to play a very decisive role in the SC.

The Fertiliser Secretary has written to the Oil Ministry raising similar concerns of the RIL_RNRL MoU versus national interest. The Power Ministry has written to the Oil Ministry again asking for more power and to follow the gas utilisation policy. Now you have the Andhra Pradesh CM writing to the Prime Minister saying that the gas utilisation policy and government policy must be upheld. What is the government going to do? It has been called as an intervener in the case, so it is going to be very interesting to see how this case pans out.