By IANS,
New Delhi : India’s dependence on crude oil from abroad may have declined marginally from 76.6 percent to 75 percent over the past two years, but self-sufficiency remains a distant dream, says the petroleum ministry.
“India is unlikely to become self-sufficient in meeting the growing demand for petroleum products from indigenous sources in near future,” Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas R.P.N. Singh said in a written reply to parliament.
A table attached to his reply shows India’s consumption of petroleum products rose from 133.6 million tonnes to 138.2 million tonnes and 141.8 million tonnes between 2008-09 and 2010-11 and the import dependence stood at 76.6 percent, 77.2 percent and 75 percent, respectively.
While the total indigenous production also rose from 31.3 million tonnes to 35.5 million tonnes during these three years, the self sufficiency only moved up marginally from 23.4 percent to 25 percent.