Keen to end the prolonged lull in investments, the government on Monday gave cleared a slew of infrastructure projects in the oil & gas and power sectors, with estimated combined investments worth R70,000 crore. The Cabinet Committee on Investments (CCI) cleared 25 oil and gas blocks with investment commitments of about $7 billion, mainly belonging to Reliance Industries and state-run ONGC. These projects were stuck over national security issues raised by the defence ministry.
That apart, as many as 13 power projects worth R33,000 crore, some of which were facing undue delays due to lack of fuel linkage and environmental clearances were also approved by the panel headed by the prime minister. Some projects of Adani Power, GMR, Jindal Power and Lanco will benefit from Monday?s decisions. Sources said six oil &gas blocks with an investment of R10,000 crore were not cleared by the CCI.
The high-powered Cabinet committee set up in December last year has since approved investment proposals worth thousands of crores, giving a boost to economic activity and at least partially addressing the issue of policy logjam which, among other things, were blamed for the economic slowdown. Last month, the CCI had given clearances to oil and gas activity in five blocks off the East Coast, majority of them belonging to Reliance Industries. The government had then said that investment already made to the extent of $10.71 billion would be put to use by those decisions.
Of the 31 oil and gas blocks reviewed by CCI on Monday, 14 of the blocks are said to belong to ONGC, 13 to RIL and one each of Cairn India and Oil India.
According to a defence ministry memo, these blocks will be cleared subject to the condition that the exploration firms will not locate any pipelines or structures on sea surface. Sub-sea/submerged permanent structures will be located more than 100 metres below sea surface or outside DRDO/air force danger zone. Besides blocks overlapping with naval exercise areas will be subject to all pipelines and structures being located more than 100 metres below sea surface when located within the naval exercise areas.