India needs energy innovation to reduce 88% oil import dependence: ONGC chief

Speaking to ANI on the sidelines of the MC Ignite Mumbai City Connect at IIT Bombay, Singh said energy self-reliance was essential for India to achieve its broader goal of becoming self-reliant.

We can't become Atma Nirbhar Bharat without being Atma Nirbhar in energy sector, Singh said.

He said India currently imports about 88 per cent of its oil requirement and 50 per cent of its gas requirement, making higher domestic production critical.

So there's a need to increase our domestic production. And for that we need to do a good amount of innovation, Singh said, adding that technological advances would be important for discovering large oil and gas reserves.

Singh also flagged the relatively small presence of startups in the energy sector, saying only about 0.2 per cent of the startup ecosystem is in oil and gas and around 2 per cent in energy.

This needs to be far more if you take the country's strategic purpose and depth to become Atma Nirbhar Bharat, he said.

He said public sector energy companies have pooled resources under the MC initiative to identify priority areas and tap startups and young innovators for technological solutions.

ONGC, in association with MC Foundation, hosted the Mumbai City Connect of MC Ignite at IIT Bombay on Tuesday. According to an ONGC release, the accelerator will support up to 30 early-stage energy startups. Selected startups can receive up to Rs 50 lakh in convertible funding and another Rs 1.5 crore in milestone-based funding, taking the potential support to Rs 2 crore per startup.

The event also saw the signing of a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding between MC Foundation, IIT Bombay and the Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (SINE), IIT Bombay to support research, pilots and commercial deployment of energy technologies.

Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) Mumbai Vice Chancellor Aniruddha B Pandit, meanwhile, said procurement rules followed by oil PSUs also need to change to make it easier for new technologies developed by startups to enter the sector.

Many technologies are available... the procurement strategies which the oil PSUs follow need to be changed because any new innovation cannot be accepted by oil PSUs unless you are registered with oil PSUs, Pandit told ANI.

Calling it a typical catch-22 situation, he said, How can you go and add something innovative to oil PSUs if you are not registered in oil PSUs?

Pandit said changes in the procurement process could provide a big boost to new technology developers and stressed that industries need to support innovation over the long term, from the idea stage to the final product.

This kind of a sustained activity is required for the development of an innovation-based technological ecosystem, which our country needs badly, he said. (ANI)