Sunday, August 28 2005 15:52 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kabul: Highlighting India's energy requirements, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today (Aug 28, 2005) said it would prefer to have gas pipelines from both Iran and Turkmenistan passing through Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"It is not a question of preferring one over the other," the Prime Minister said at a joint press conference with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai when asked about India's preference of getting gas through pipelines either from Iran or Turkmenistan.

"We need both the pipelines Iran Pakistan India and pipeline from Turkmenistan-Afghanistan Pakistan-India. India's needs for commercial energy are increasing at an explosive rate", he said.

Singh said India's economy was growing at a rate of 7-8 per cent per annum. Therefore, he said, there is an enormous demand for unmet commercial energy, which is going to increase.

Both the pipelines are currently at proposal stage. While India has short listed three financial advisors including KPMG, Standard Chartered and Ernst & Young for suggesting project structure for executing the 7.4-billion dollar Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, Turkmenistan is currently assessing the gas reserve for export through the proposed pipeline of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan.

This proposal is backed by Asian Development Bank but analysts are sceptical about the natural exportable gas reserves from Turkemistan.