Hindi → English transcript

There is talk of an oil and gas crisis,

but then I remembered that this crisis would have never occurred in India,

if this scam hadn't happened in Gujarat.

This is a scam that the CAG had flagged in its audit report,

but to date, no investigation has been conducted into it.

So, there was a Gujarat government company,

Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation.

This company worked in the oil and gas sector.

In 2002, this company was allocated a block in the Krishna Godavari Basin,

for drilling. Suddenly, in 2005,

Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi

makes an official announcement and states that the Gujarat government's company,

GSPC, has discovered India's largest gas reserve in the KG Basin.

Which is a total of 20 trillion cubic feet, and at that time,

its value was 2,20,000 crores.

He also said the cost would be 1,500 crores and

production would start here after 2007. Let me tell you,

this was many times more than India's total gas reserves.

Then came the same big talk: Gujarat will become a global leader,

and India will become self- reliant. Now 2006 passed, 2007 passed, 2008 passed,

and 2009 passed too.

This company didn't even start exploration. Finally, in 2009,

this company published a report explaining how they would explore the KG Basin.

The report also stated that the total cost would be 8,500 crores.

And the estimated reserves here were only two trillion cubic feet, whereas in 2005,

Narendra Modi had stated that the cost would be

only 1,500 crores and the reserves here were 20 trillion cubic feet.

This report estimated reserves to be 90% lower. Now 2010 went by, 2011 went by,

2015 went by, and 2016 went by too.

Until now, this company hasn't even started exploration here. Meanwhile, Gujarat's

Chief Minister Narendra Modi became India's Prime Minister in 2014. After which,

the CAG audit reports for all three years— 2013, 2014, and 2015— were delayed.

In 2016, the CAG report finally comes out and reveals that this

company has taken loans of 20,000 crores. And also, between 2005 and 2010,

this company bought

a total of 11 gas blocks in Australia, Indonesia, Egypt, and Yemen.

Later, it had to sell these gas blocks because they were loss- making.

And listen to this, GSPC had a technical partner, GeoGlobal Resources.

This company was formed just six days before PM Modi's official announcement.

And it had no prior experience whatsoever.

Not only that, this company had a drilling partner, Tuff Drilling.

This company was also formed just a few days after the official announcement.

And they had no prior experience.

In fact, this company's promoter was in the clothing business. Just imagine,

two companies with absolutely no prior experience suddenly get the contract

for India's largest gas block.

Furthermore, the CAG report highlighted multiple financial mismanagements in this

company and demanded an investigation,

but no investigation has been conducted to this day. A few years later,

GSPC sold its loss- making KG block to a profitable company, ONGC, after which ONGC

itself went into losses.