TheMinister of State (I/C) for Petroleum and Natural Gas Mr. Dharmendra Pradhanvisited Assam from 14-17 April  2015.During the visit he toured extensively covering facilities of Oil India Ltd(OIL) in Duliajan, OIL and Indian Oil Corp (IOC) in Digboi, BrahmaputraCrackers & Polymer Ltd (BCPL) in Dibrugarh, ONGC assets in Nazira andGeleki, Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) in Numaligarh and IOC Refinery inGuwahati. He interacted with various stakeholders including employees, unionand local community.

Mr. Pradhan also met the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Assam Mr. Tarun Gogoi inGuwahati. He informed the Chief Minister about the decision of the Governmentto increase investment in all streams of hydrocarbon sector in North East,increase in the exploration activities, expansion of PNG network, and ensureavailability of petroleum products, including LPG in the remotest corner ofNorth East.

During his visit Mr. Pradhan reviewed all activities in hydrocarbon sector inNorth East in general and Assam in particular. All senior officers of MoPNG,all CMDs of PSUs under the administrative control of MoPNG and representativesof Private Sector companies working in North east participated in it. This wasfor the first time that entire top brass of oil and gas sector assembledtogether in North East. It was observed that in order to implement Hon’blePrime Minister’s instructions to reduce the import dependency by 10% by 2022,we need to invest heavily in North east to boost the production. The Ministerconstituted a high level committee under Additional Secretary to work out aHydrocarbon Vision Document for North East by July 2015.

North East is one of the most priority areas of the new Government under theleadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, who believes that forbalanced growth of India, North East must grow at a better and fasterpace.

Assam is the birth place of India’s hydrocarbon sector and even todaycontributes about 10% of Natural Gas and Crude Oil production of the country.Over the years the production of oil and gas in Assam is decreasing due tovarious reasons. The Minister personally reviewed this and instructed to takesteps to arrest the decreasing trend of production. He also visited andreviewed CSR projects undertaken by the PSUs. He also announced that oil PSU’swill be constructing more than 3700 school toilets in Assam.