In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi set an ambitious target of reducing India’s dependence on imported oil to meet its energy needs to 67% by 2022 from 77% back then. Officials have since emphasized the need to lower oil imports, given their damaging effects on the economy. But for all the talk, those efforts so far appear to have come to naught. On the contrary, India’s dependence on imported oil has gone up over the past five years.
According to latest official data, India imported 83.7% of the crude oil it consumed last fiscal year, the highest in many years. It also compares unfavourably with the 77.6% oil dependency figure for 2013-14.
In absolute terms, crude oil imports stood at 226.6 million metric tonnes (MMT) last year, compared with 189.2 MMT in 2013-14. The reason: demand for petroleum products has shot up by more than a third, while local crude oil production has failed to keep pace.
