Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar Thursday asserted in parliament there was "no going back" for India on the proposed gas pipeline from Iran.

"I met the prime minister for one hour on Sunday and again on Monday. The message I got was absolutely clear, there is no going back. A schedule has been laid out and we are going by it," Aiyar said in the Lok Sabha.

"I am exactly at the same wave length as the prime minister. The decision of going ahead with the pipeline is in accordance with his direction."

Responding to an opposition outcry over Manmohan Singh's remarks in Washington mentioning "risks" in the pipeline project, Aiyar said the doubts expressed by him did not mean India was going back on the project.

"The prime minister said 'we are in preliminary negotiations. We are terribly short of energy sources. We desperately need the supply of gas from Iran. I am realistic enough to realise there were hazards,'" Aiyar told the house.

Turning to the opposition, he said: "You tell me whether there is not any danger involved? It does not mean that we are going back. We have to go forward and face the problems."

The minister said the joint group had discussed financial, technical, commercial and legal matters involved in the project and decided "we should have a safe and secure world class project."

Aiyar said all the issues were discussed and he did not see any problem in the proposal. "We can solve this problem," he said.

According to him, the schedule of meetings between India and Iran and India and Pakistan had been laid down till end of December and they were being maintained.

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s deputy leader in the house, V.K. Malhotra, again repeated Manmohan Singh's remarks about "whether any bank or consortium would come forward" to underwrite the project.

In a sharp rejoinder to Malhotra, Aiyar said he was trying to mislead the house.

"On July 11 (and) 12 the India-Pakistan joint working committee met. Pakistan concluded that there should be a financial consortium to be appointed between the two countries to discuss commercial and technical problems.

"We have enough reserves, even Pakistan has. It is true that a sanction was passed by the US in 1996 against Iran. But there was no imposition."

Aiyar pointed out that many international banks were also investing in Iran.

The minister went on to hit back at the opposition with its own weapon by reminding them of a statement by Jaswant Singh when he was foreign minister in then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government: "There is no way India could agree to an overland pipeline."

A defensive BJP started shouting and demanding that Jaswant Singh's quote be expunged from the records, but Speaker Somnath Chatterjee refused to comply.