Petroleum minister Veerappa Moily’s observation on “import lobbies” seeking to bring this country’s oil ministers under pressure — while speaking to journalists on a broad range of issues on Friday, including the question of gas pricing in a manner that lifts sagging investor sentiments in the sector and also more generally — deserves serious consideration.
It is a fit subject to be discussed in Parliament in as non-partisan a way as possible since Mr Moily has also noted that India was “floating in oil and gas” but was subject to foreign pressures to carry on with imports that account for some three quarters of our oil and gas needs. What the minister appeared to want to flag was the importance to be accorded to the domestic exploration programme.
It is a pity that political comments have sought to overlook this to lean on the side of partisanship when national elections are near. The CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta, a respected veteran, has attacked Mr Moily for wanting to favour the Ambanis through a raise in gas prices, and has by implication minimised the need for expanding domestic exploration for oil and gas. This is surprising for a Left leader.
It is noteworthy that Mr Moily himself does not conceal his prescription of raising the price of indigenous gas (which will doubtless please Reliance Industries, a significant indigenous private sector player in the business), but says the matter will eventually be decided by the CCEA and the Planning Commission. Does this make him an agent of any kind?
Ram Naik, who was oil minister in the NDA government and enjoyed the esteem of his political peers, also appears to have given little serious thought to the issues being raised, suggesting only that the present petroleum minister is making excuses for the faulty oil sector policy of his government.
But policies in this sector deserve detailed and sensitive discussion, especially if faulty, and not merely to enquire about the identity of foreign lobbies. The latter issue needs to be comprehended in a deeper political economy sense. The question is not primarily one of nailing particular individuals — from foreign oil multinationals or their Indian satellites ensconced in the petroleum bureaucracy or public sector oil companies — but seeing the issue in the perspective of the geopolitics of oil. It is noteworthy in this context that even a powerful geo-economic and geo-political player like the United States is going all out to develop domestic shale gas in order to reduce its dependence on oil from West Asia, a tricky part of the world on account of the politics of oil.