Rajya Sabha passes Bill to streamline oil and gas exploration

“We carried out large-scale stakeholder consultations. Not only the five oil majors, and almost invariably all of them, including other stakeholders told us that our legal framework required tweaking, but major changes. This Bill seeks to eliminate punishments in the form of imprisonment and enhances penalties for compliance and expeditious mechanism for levying penalties and handling appeals,” Puri said.

Opposition parties, including Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Aam Aadmi Party, Trinamool Congress, Communist Party of India questioned the motive of the Bill and sought that it should be sent to a standing committee for scrutiny.

Shakisinh Gohil of the Congress said that the government should not change arbitration provisions as they could discourage global oil and gas companies due to government control in disputes. DMK’s N R Elango said that the Bill must be sent to a select committee and alleged that the delinking of mining and petroleum was done to strip states of their rights in the sector.

The oil minister said that the amendments provide a win-win confidence to domestic operators and foreign investors and added that it would bring policy stability, speedy dispute resolution and sharing of infrastructure. Earlier during the debate, he attacked past governments and said that virtually nothing was done between 2006 and 2016 on the exploration and production front and that their government had to bear the brunt.

To this, Gohil said that Mumbai High, Neelam and Heera oil fields started operations during the Congress rule. Yerram Venkata Subba Reddy of the YSR Congress supported the Bill and said that this would translate to more investments for Andhra Pradesh, both onshore and offshore. The decriminalisation of offences, he added, made it more business-friendly.

Meanwhile, CPI’s P P Suneer said that the BJP’s priority was exploitation of precious natural resources and added that public enterprises, such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, should be given priority over private players for the sake of the economy.