Panel formed for better coordination among petrol, environment ministries

To speed up hydrocarbon exploration-related clearances, the Narendra Modi government has set up a committee for better coordination among the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG), the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), and the state governments.

The panel has Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha as chairman, and secretaries of home, petroleum and environment will be members.

The newly formed committee will have a representative from the NITI Aayog and chief secretaries of petroleum-producing states like Assam, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, said a source close to the development.

V P Joy, Director General (DG) of the Directorate General Hydrocarbons (DGH), has been appointed as its convener.

This comes at a time when a tug of war is going on between the oil ministry and the MoEF on whether “exploration” should be treated as “mining”. In April, the DGH had written to the MoEF, saying exploration and mining should be considered as different activities.

“A lot of onshore and offshore blocks under the discovered small fields (DSF) and Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) rounds are also stuck with the MoEF. Hence, the new committee will function like a mini-GST Council, meeting on a quarterly basis to remove the bottlenecks,” said a government official.

Alongside, at an April 23 meeting of the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) under the MoEF it was decided to set up a committee under the chairmanship of Additional Director General (Forest Conservation), or ADG (FC), with representatives from Assam, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana governments as its members. This was after requests from various stakeholders regarding appropriate modifications in the existing guidelines on exploration and prospecting in the forest area.

Another point of contention was the stand by companies that exploration activities can only be considered as a temporary “vegetation change”. Adding steam to the exploration debate, a recommendation by a team of officials under the FC division was also placed before the FAC. It stated that the process of exploration drilling for hydrocarbon in 130 m x 130 m area causes total damage to vegetation (both floral and faunal elements) in the area and cannot be considered as temporary vegetation change. Following this, the panel headed by ADG (FC) was formed.

“A detail deliberation with the stakeholders such as the DGH, the MoPNG, ONGC, Oil India and private players in the hydrocarbons sector is essential before taking any decision on guidelines on seismic survey. In fact, it will be helpful if MoEF & CC (climate change) also involves representatives of the Ministry of Mines and the Ministry of Coal in such deliberation,” the report cited.

Despite the MoPNG taking possible policy measures — including steps to ramp up existing production, bringing reforms like HELP (Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy) and taking a series of de-bottlenecking measures in NELP (New Exploration Licensing Policy) and pre-NELP regimes — the country’s imports increased from 77 per cent to around 85 per cent between 2014 and 2019.

Hence, after taking charge as petroleum minister in the second term, Dharmendra Pradhan had indicated that his key priorities would be to increase the domestic oil production in India.
 

About the committee

 

• The panel has Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha as chairman, and secretaries of home, petroleum and environment will be members
• It will have a representative from the NITI Aayog and chief secretaries of petroleum-producing states like Assam, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Telangana and TN
• V P Joy, Director General (DG) of the Directorate General Hydrocarbons (DGH), has been appointed as its convener
• This comes at a time when a tug of war is going on between the oil ministry and the MoEF on whether exploration should be treated as mining