PM Modi Announces National Deep Water Exploration Mission

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced a National Deep Water Exploration Mission aimed at discovering oil and gas reserves beneath the seabed, as part of efforts to boost domestic production and reduce the country's multi-billion-dollar import bill.

- OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced a National Deep Water Exploration Mission aimed at discovering oil and gas reserves beneath the seabed, as part of efforts to boost domestic production and reduce the country's multi-billion-dollar import bill.

India is dependent on imports to meet as much as 88 per cent of its needs of crude oil, which is converted into fuels like petrol and diesel, and about half of its requirement of natural gas, which is used to generate electricity, produce fertilisers and converted to CNG to power automobiles.

One reason for high import dependence is that the country is not endowed with easyto-find reserves. Large oil and gas discoveries like KG-D6 of Reliance Industries and KGDWN-98/2 of ONGC happened in the pre-2014 period in deepsea blocks.

"A huge portion of the budget is spent on importing petrol, diesel, gas, and other such resources... lakhs of crores of rupees go into this," Modi said.