Prime Minister Narendra Modi also wooed potential investors from the oil and gas sector to set up shop in India, pointing out that India’s economy is expected to grow five fold by 2040 and account for one fourth of incremental global energy demand between 2013 and 2040
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday announced that the government will extend Piped Natural Gas to ten million houses over the next five years. The policy is set to come as a huge fillip to plans to extend India’s last mile cooking gas pipeline network.
“The government bears the one time cost of the connection but the consumer pays the full price for the gas. This programme has already provided nearly ten million new connections in just seven months,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the Petrotech event on Monday, pointing out that the cooking gas price is also determined by the market.
To protect the vulnerable and the middle class, a subsidy is paid directly to one hundred and sixty nine million bank accounts. “This has eliminated leakages and misuse of cooking gas subsidies, resulting in large fiscal savings,” Modi added.
The Prime Minister also urged the oil industry to increase domestic oil and gas production and reduce import dependence. Efforts, he said, should be focused towards becoming a gas-based economy while giving a vision statement for India’s energy future that stands on four pillars — energy access, energy efficiency, energy sustainability and energy security.
Modi also said that the government is committed to expanding the National gas grid network from its current length of fifteen thousand kilometres pipeline to thirty thousand kilometers. Urging investors in the oil industry to look into recent initiatives of the government, he asked them to explore investing in India.
Making the pitch, Modi pointed out that India’s economy is expected to grow five fold by 2040. As per estimates, India is poised to account for one fourth of the incremental global energy demand between 2013 and 2040. He also said that India has a strong banking system. “India is expected to consume more oil in 2040 than the whole of Europe. We expect manufacturing to account for twenty five per cent of GDP by 2022 against sixteen per cent now,” he said. India, he added, has a strong, investment friendly policy framework in place to boost domestic hydrocarbon production.