Govt nominates DGH chief on ONGC board

The petroleum ministry has nominated V K Sibal, director general of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), on the board of ONGC - a move seen as conflicting with DGH's role as sector regulator.

DGH is the government's nodal agency for upstream oil and gas exploration and production business, and regulates all E&P activities in the country.

"We are supposed to file all our data and investment plans with DGH whose chief will now also sit on the board of a public sector company board with whom we are in direct competition," a senior official of a private sector E&P player said.

"This is extremely discomforting," he said, asking how the telecom industry would react if Trai chairman P Baijal was appointed on the board of BSNL.

A top oil ministry official defended the move saying: "DGH is just a government arm and not a regulator. DGH has no statutory status. The director general of DGH is just like any other official of the ministry who we could have appointed on ONGC board."

Observers, however, say that DGH was always the upstream
regulator as was evident from the government move to bring in a
legislation for setting up a regulatory board only for the downstream oil refining and marketing and gas business.

Petroleum secretary S C Tripathi had endorsed DGH as the upstream regulator, and explained the process of setting up the downstream regulator in a presentation to the Prime Minister earlier this month.