Govt in talks with GCC countries on oil-for-food scheme: Pradhan

The govt is contemplating to increase export of basmati rice and wheat to GCC countries

India is in bilateral talks with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, to ensure its energy security and also to increase its exports especially Basmati Rice and wheat under a scheme in which they can exchange crude oil for food.

"We are in talks with 2-3 GCC countries to ensure our oil security and at the same time they want to ensure their food security. The discussions are being held at the senior leadership level.," said Dharmendra Pradhan, minister for Oil, Petroleum and Natural Gas while interacting with media persons.

Under the programme, the government is contemplating to increase export of Basmati Rice and wheat to GCC countries.

GCC region is the source of nearly two-third of India's crude oil requirements and its largest trading partner. UAE alone contributes significantly to India's energy security and is the sixth largest supplier of crude oil to India in 2014-15. For India's energy security, UAE is an important country as it gets 9.38 per cent of total crude requirement from that country. The volume of supply in 2014-15 was 15.99 million tonnes.

Pradhan also added that that India has already set reserves to store crude oil. He added that the country recently commissioned 5.33 MMT capacity to store oil at Vishakapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Manglore and Padur in Karnataka. He also added that the work on setting up reserves for additional 12.5 MMTPA would commence soon.

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to UAE, it was decided to increase the current volume of bilateral trade by 60 per cent in the next five years. India is UAE's number one trading partner while the Gulf nation is India's third largest trading partner after the US and China.