No fraud office probe into Ambani feud, says Govt

“We don’t go fishing. Nobody said anything to us...they may have complained to some other ministry, not us,” Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid told PTI when asked about allegations levelled by Anil Ambani Group that Reliance Industries had jacked up its expenditure on gas operations.

Declining that there was any role for the ministry or any scope of a probe by Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), he said, “There is no such complaint as far as we are concerned...at my level there is nothing.” Anil Ambani group recently alleged that Mukesh Ambani-led RIL had overstated the expenditure at its Krishna Godavari basin gas fields. The allegations have been refuted by the other side. Making it clear that his ministry would initiate action only if it receives specific complaint, he said, “I don’t want to go fishing from stories that (media) carry that there is another fish to catch.”

GAIL to levy marketing fee
Meanwhile, Dabhol power plant started buying natural gas from Reliance Industries to cut electricity generation cost at the country’s largest gas-fired unit.

“We started drawing (RIL’s) KG-D6 gas from Wednesday. The volumes were around 4.5 million standard cubic meters per day,” said A K Ahuja, Managing Director of Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd, the company that runs the 2,150 MW power plant and adjoining LNG receipt facility in Maharasthra.

In a significant development, the government may allow state gas utility GAIL India to charge a marketing margin on sale of APM or subsidised natural gas.
GAIL has been nominated as the government agency for selling the fuel, called APM (Administered Pricing Mechanism) gas, from such fields.