New Delhi, July 7 (Inditop.com) India will resume road shows for its latest round of auction of hydrocarbon assets, with the finance minister announcing in the union budget that tax holiday would be extended to natural gas production.
“Now that this clarity is there, the road show will go ahead and we expect good response on this account,” Petroleum Secretary R.S. Pandey said in an interview to business television channel CNBC TV-18.
Pandey said that the tax holiday will so far only apply to blocks auctioned under the current eight round of auction of oil and gas gas blocks.
Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora had launched the eighth round of new exploration licensing policy (NELP) April 9, with an announcement that there will be several promotional road shows.
But, within a couple of weeks, the road shows were postponed, mainly as there was no clear stand on whether the tax holiday would be restored.
“Prospectively, there was a very clear case. We had already launched NELP VIII and when we launched the investors did ask us as to whether the government is going to provide this talked tax holiday on gas or not. So we told them that we will take a view in the government and will come back to you, we had postponed our road show,” Pandey added.
The tax holiday issue had been contentious even last year, when the deadline for submitting bids for the 2008 auction was moved forwards repeatedly over lack of demand due to confusion over the matter.
