India’s parliamentary watchdog has called on the oil ministry for clearer accountability on how new exploration awards and licensing policy rounds will boost domestic crude production amid continued decline and investment discrepancies.
India’s parliamentary watchdog on petroleum has pressed the oil ministry for a fuller account of how fresh exploration awards and successive Open Acreage Licensing Policy rounds will lift crude output, as the country grapples with falling domestic production even after years of heavier investment. According to The Hindu BusinessLine, the Committee on Public Undertakings said the ministry’s current reply was only interim and wanted a report showing how new blocks and OALP auctions would translate into measurable gains over the medium term.
The committee said it welcomed a string of policy moves, including later OALP bidding rounds, the opening up of large offshore “No-Go” zones and spending on seismic surveys, but argued that spending and production trends were not moving in step. It noted that capital expenditure by petroleum and natural gas public-sector companies rose from about ₹1.34 lakh crore in FY21 to a projected ₹1.70 lakh crore in FY25, while crude output is expected to fall from 34.20 million tonnes in FY19 to 28.70 million tonnes in FY25. Natural gas production has risen only modestly over the same period, The Hindu BusinessLine reported.
The panel also said large exploration and production outlays should be tied to benchmarks, regular reviews and accountability. It wants the ministry to explain the production effect of newly awarded acreage and major spending programmes, and said it expected “real returns” to show up in output that stops declining and begins to stabilise or recover. The committee’s report was laid before Lok Sabha on Thursday, following action taken replies from the ministry dated May 14, 2026, to recommendations originally presented in December 2025.
In its response, the ministry said India launched the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy in 2016 and introduced OALP under that framework. It said 38 exploration blocks were awarded in OALP bid rounds VIII and IX over the past three years, covering 172,912.95 square kilometres of offshore areas, while Round X, launched on April 15, 2025, offered 25 blocks across 191,986.21 square kilometres in six states. The ministry also pointed to a 2018 policy designed to promote enhanced recovery and improved recovery methods through partial royalty and cess waivers, saying mature fields naturally decline year by year. Economic Times separately reported that pre-2014 NELP rounds drew more than $36 billion in investment and led to 177 oil and gas discoveries, a reminder of the scale of returns policy reforms can produce when exploration translates into finds.
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