Indigenisation of oil and gas exploration The Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum & Natural Gas Shri Dharmendra Pradhan informed the Rajya Sabha in a written reply today that the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas has constituted a Steering Committee comprising of the members drawn from the Ministry of Petroleum, Ministry of Commerce, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, various Oil PSUs and representatives from FICCI, CII and AOGO. The actionable areas identified by the Steering Committee in short term (one year) and medium term (three years) include: (a) Suitable amendments in the public procurement norms to mandate aggregation of requirement and local content as procurement criteria as a short term initiative. (b) A target of indigenisation of 50% in the upstream sector in the medium term (c) Setting up of dedicated manufacturing zones/clusters catering to Oil field services such as ship building, offshore platforms and rigs in the medium term. MJPS/Rk
