Invest in oil & gas exploration: Rajya Sabha

 With India's oil consumption expected to shoot up by a staggering 53 per cent in the next five years, the country should go ahead with energy deals like the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI)gas pipeline as well as aggressively bid for oil against competitors like China, the members said.

  Simultaneously, concerned members also wanted the government to give fillip to research in alternative fuels and take steps for fuel conservation. The issue was raised through a private members resolution and Vijay Darda of the Congress complained that despite massive inflow of funds, the nations crude production had remained stagnant for the last couple of years.

 Darda and another ruling party member Sudarsana Natchappan wanted a white paper on why the public sector oil undertaking had failed to strike oil and gas in Godavari basin, while foreign companies, who had taken over their stakes, had done it within a year.