Articles by Surya P Sethi

Claims of a "turnaround" in the infrastructure sector are premature in a country where two-thirds of households do not have combined access to electricity, commercial cooking energy, piped water and sanitation. The gaps in infrastructure planning, examined in this article for the coal and power sectors, point to serious issues in the Indian context that need informed discussions rather than mere rhetoric.

The new formula for the pricing of natural gas produced in the country is an improvement on the Rangarajan formula because it corrects many of the computational flaws of the much-criticised approach of the previous government. However, there remain faults and there are conceptual flaws as well in the new formula, which if corrected should take the well-head price of gas to no more than   $4.20 per million British thermal unit, rather than the price of $5.05 that has now been notified. There also continues to be a problem with this intervention in fixing prices since the production-sharing contracts do not provide for a direct role for the government in setting the price of natural gas at the well-head.