The government is working on a plan to set up a natural gas trading hub by the end of this fiscal, to enable better price discovery of the fuel.
Related measures such as splitting GAIL India’s marketing and pipeline operations and bringing natural gas under GST will be done prior to the setting up of the hub.
Sources said Indian Energy Exchange – the nationwide automated platform for the physical delivery of electricity — will set up the hub and has started creating a dedicated team. Oil ministry officials said they would move a proposal before the Union cabinet to transfer the pipeline business of GAIL into a 100 per cent subsidiary.
