Oily matters

The new dispensation in the petroleum ministry has been horrified by the profligacy of the former chairman of Oil and Natural Gas Company (ONGC), Subir Raha. Not only did he give participatory contracts, without a tendering process, worth hundreds of crores to his favourites, he also engaged a company to undertake the expensive exercise of deep-sea drilling for oil and gas without adequate home work. Almost Rs 6000 crore was squandered. Recall that the earlier regime was also planning to build stadiums, malls, hotels and structures, completely outside ONGC’s mandate.

Now the petroleum ministry is trying to convince oil production companies like ONGC and OIL that they should put all the profits accrued to them due to the global high oil price regime in the public domain. They are citing the manner in which the Venezuelan government has utilised this bounty to fight poverty and illiteracy. Even European oil companies recognise that the profits have less to do with their own efforts and they should be shared with rest of society.

The petroleum ministry believes that the Rs 25,000 crore that ONGC has earned due to the high oil prices could be utilised in turning around the backward areas in the North-East region where ONGC has some of its installations.