Despite focusing more on decarbonisation, India can gradually phase out the use of fossil fuel energy basket by increasing the share of natural gas. Discuss (200 Words)
Refer - The Indian Express
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 4 years
KEY POINTS
· India must first green its fossil fuel energy basket, can be done by increasing the share of natural gas.
· It will not require industries to invest heavily in retrofitting their systems; and it will allow the government to meet its objective of providing secure and affordable energy.
Measures
· The authorities must prioritise natural gas. They must recognise its versatility.
· The authorities must correct the current disincentivising policy distortions. One for gas produced from domestic fields by the public sector companies; one for gas produced by private companies; one for production from deep waters offshore under high temperature etc.
· The taxation system is also comparably regressive. It is a cascading structure so that the tax rates increase as the gas flows from one zone to another.
· The authorities should revamp the structure of the industry. The Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) is currently engaged in the production, transportation and marketing of gas.
· This allows GAIL to leverage its ownership of the bulk of the gas pipelines to deny its competitors access to the market.
· The policy calls for assured and common access to all marketers but GAIL can bend the policy to its advantage without breaching it.
