new delhi indias appetite for conventioanl fuels will continue to grow in spite of the governments push for electric vehicles oil minister dharmendra pradhan said on tuesday defending his ministrys plans to build a giant refinery and petrochemicals complex by 2022 at a cost an investment of rs 27 lakh crore and pitching for bringing natural gas under gst regimeindia consumes just 6 of the global primary energy at present but will account for 25 of the incremental growth pradhan told an energy conclave industry said at a kpmg energy summit hereindia needs multisource fuels to meet its growing energy needs he said adding there is a requirement for conventional fuels coal nuclear power as well as renewablesgiven the market size we have and consumption pattern we need multiple sources of energy pradhan said adding that the planned refinery is to meet the incremental demand in india for fuel and energypradhan said indias percapita petrochemical consumption is just 10 kg as against the global average of 30 kg and the nation is import dependent to meet its petrochemical needs so if the petrochemical demand grows with the expanding economy we would need domestic productionpetrochemicals are valueadded output of refining business and go into manufacturing plastics to cosmetics and many more items pradhanhe also asked that if a highlypolluting fuel such as coal is included in the gst regime then the lesspolluting fuel like natural gas certainly deserves a place in the new tax regime coal has been included and levied with 5 gst but gas is outside gst how fair is that he saidcrude oil petrol diesel aviation turbine fuel atf or jet fuel and natural gas are not included in gst which has amalgamated over a dozen indirect taxes including excise duty service tax and vat since it kicked in from july 1hence while various goods and services procured by the oil and gas industry are subjected to gst the sale and supply of oil gas and petroleum products continue to attract earlier taxes like excise duty and vatunlike other industries which can take credit for any tax paid towards the furtherance of business no credits on input gst will be available to the oil and gas industry leading to the huge additional indirect tax burdenpradhans ministry had previously written to the finance ministry to consider including natural gas in gst