The Hon’ble Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas, Sh. Jitin Prasada was briefed by Director General, PetroFed Sh. A.K. Arora when he called on him along with other PetroFed directors on June 3, 2009.

The Hon’ble Minister was presented the PetroFed publications : Fuelling India’s Growth:  Past Trends and Scenarios 2011-2012; Fuelling India’s Growth-Vision 2030; The Green Imperative : Future of Natural Gas in India – 2030.  He was also presented copies of PetroFed reports on Subsidy Administration of LPG and Kerosene.  Briefing the Hon’ble Minister on the activities of PetroFed, the Director General exhorted him to step up the pace of change and drew his attention to five critical issues facing the sector.  The highlighted issues were:

1. Market determined pricing for auto fuels.
2. Removal of dual pricing and subsidy administration for domestic LPG and Kerosene through Smart Cards by targeting deserving persons.
3. Fiscal stability by unequivocally declaring that mineral oil includes and always included natural gas for tax exemption under Section 80 IB(9) of the Income Tax Act, 1961. A stage has reached, he was informed, that in one case the income tax has denied exemption even for crude oil on the plea that it is neither produced nor manufactured but merely extracted from the earth.
4. Granting Declared Goods status to natural gas to promote gas development in the country.
5. Inclusion of oil & gas in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) slated for introduction in the country effective April 1, 2010.

The Hon’ble Minister gave a patient hearing and when informed that we were in the process of submitting a 100 Days Agenda for Government for the Oil & Gas Industry advised us to expedite the same.  The document was submitted on June 10, 2009.