India Education Diary | Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri States India’s 4-Plank Strategy On Energy Security

Jan 10,2023

India has been able to navigate through the most formidable energy crisis the world has seen since the 1973 oil crisis thanks to its four-pronged energy security strategy: Diversification of energy supplies; Increasing India’s Exploration & Production footprint; Alternate energy sources and meeting energy transition through Gas-based economy, Green Hydrogen and EVs. India increased the number of its crude oil suppliers from 27 countries in 2006-07 to 39 in 2021-22, adding new suppliers like Columbia, Russia, Libya, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea etc., while strengthening our relationship with countries like US and Russia, said Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Petroleum and Natural gas.

“Diesel prices, which in India between December 2021 and December 2022 rose by only 3%, went up by 34% in the USA, 36% in Canada, 25% in Spain and 10% in the UK. There was a massive impact due to the Central excise cuts announced by the Hon’ble Prime Minister in May 2022 and November 2021, amounting to Rs. 13 per litre of petrol and Rs.15 per litre on diesel cumulatively, along with significant VAT rate cuts by many Indian states. Govt. of India intends to increase India’s exploration acreage to 0.5 million sq. km. by 2025 and 1.0 million sq. km. by 2030. The Govt. has been successful in reducing the ‘No Go’ area by 99%, opening .91 million sq. km. of acreage; we have also established the National Data Repository (NDR) and plans are afoot for a cloud-based and AI/ML-powered National Data NDR 2.0.”, he further said.