Like on the first day of the session, the opposition Congress staged a walkout from the House also on the last day on Friday. This time, however, the protest was over a resolution relating to the crude oil royalty from the Centre.

Industry minister Saurabh Patel brought in a resolution alleging that the UPA government was not giving the rightful crude royalty of Rs1,500 crore to Gujarat. Patel, in his resolution, said the state had received a royalty of Rs508.15 crore and Rs589.62 crore during 2000-01 and 2001-02, and Rs1,881 crore and Rs1,719 crore during 2006-07 and 2007-08 respectively.

He said the present central government in April 2008 made a change and started paying royalty at post-return prices instead of market prices. This means instead of getting Rs1,964.43 crore, Gujarat got only Rs429.98 crore, thereby losing Rs1,500 crore.

However, opposition leader Shaktisinh Gohil rejected this and charged the Gujarat government with misleading people about finances to Gujarat by the Congress-led UPA rule.

Gohil said that the UPA had given much more royalty to Gujarat than the NDA government. On an average, Gujarat got Rs1,490 crore a year during the UPA government as compared to Rs614 crore during the NDA rule.

In such a situation, Gujarat government’s insistence for pre-discounted price of crude for calculating royalty was wrong. “Many other states are taking post- discounted price-based royalty. Pre and post discounted prices are not going to make any substantial difference in the current crude oil market scenario,” he said. Consequently, there is no question of loss to Gujarat in royalty.

Aid for diamond workers

Agriculture and co-operation minister Dilip Sanghani announced that government will give 2% interest subvention (a subsidy from government) on co-operative banks farm loan and 3% interest subvention to those who are related to the diamond workers to help them in the time of recession.

DNA Correspondent/ DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication