Venkaiah Naidu calls for indigenous oil production
Visakhapatnam: Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu has called for increasing indigenous production of crude oil through strong research and development efforts to ensure energy security of the country.
Delivering the first convocation address of the Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy (IIPE) here on Friday, he urged for ‘Atma Nirbharta’ in the country’s energy mix and suggested focussing more on increasing domestic exploration of petroleum, harnessing the full potential of renewable sources and aiming for excellence and innovation in the energy industry.
India is the world’s third largest consumer of crude oil and yet import-dependent for more than 80 percent of its needs, he noted and underscored the importance of increasing production, not only to save foreign exchange but also to ensure energy security. The various policy reforms of the government such as the Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy (HELP) were aimed at increasing exploration in new sedimentary basins, he pointed out.
Referring to the impact of population and industrialisation on increased energy demand, Naidu said that ‘India’s primary energy demand is expected to grow at an average rate of more than 3% till 2045 as compared to less than 1% growth for the rest of the world.’ Towards this, he urged upon IIPE, a dedicated university for petroleum research and recognised as an Institution of National Importance in 2017 through an Act of Parliament, and other energy institutes to bridge the supply gap of skilled manpower for the petroleum sector and build stronger industry-institute linkages with the prominent market players.
The Vice President also suggested encouraging Ph.D. students to undertake research on problems faced by the industry and thus ‘bring a multi-disciplinary approach into academic research, which is the aim of National Education Policy 2020.’
Noting that India is blessed with ample renewable sources such as solar, wind and tidal power, he suggested fully tapping the potential of these sources of energy as part of the efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels. To achieve this, he suggested institutes specialising in energy should also seek to diversify their portfolio and take up projects which have a component of renewable energy research. “Even a tiny improvement in the efficiency of harnessing green sources will deliver great benefits of scale to our economy and ecology”,
Naidu exuded confidence that IIPE would show the way forward by becoming an exemplar in the domain of energy research. He appreciated the efforts of the administration and complimented the graduating students for their achievements. He gave away awards to the gold medalists from the batches 2016-20 and 2017-21.
On this occasion, the Vice President called for caution and utmost adherence to COVID-19 protocol as the country is going through the third wave of the pandemic. Appreciating the government’s efforts for vaccination, he called upon civil society groups, students, medical professionals and others to reach out to as many people as possible and encourage people to get vaccinated. “It is now well established that vaccination drastically reduces the need for hospitalisation, including admission to ICU. Vaccination can indeed save lives,” he observed.
Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Labour and Employment Rameswar Teli, Andhra Pradesh Minister for Animal Husbandry and Fisheries & Dairies Development Dr. Seediri Appala Raju , Prof P.K. Banik, President of the Board of Governors, IIPE, Prof. PK Banik, Director, IIPE Prof. VSRK Prasad, Vice Chancellors of various Universities, other dignitaries and the graduating students participated in the event.
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