New Delhi: The Union Cabinet Friday approved a Rs 84,084 crore outlay for Samudra Manthan, the Centre’s flagship offshore oil and gas exploration programme, giving financial backing to a project Prime Minister Narendra Modi first announced during his Independence Day address on 15 August 2025.
The scheme, which will be implemented till FY2030-31, is among the government’s biggest investments in India’s upstream petroleum sector. It aims to accelerate exploration in India’s offshore waters, increase domestic production of oil and gas, and strengthen the country’s long-term energy security by reducing dependence on imports.
Addressing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw described Samudra Manthan as “a very ambitious programme” for oil and gas exploration and production, saying India has “significant reserves of hydrocarbons, including oil and natural gas” within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
He said the programme has been designed to systematically explore these resources and subsequently bring them into production so that India can substantially increase its domestic output.
What is Samudra Manthan?
Samudra Manthan is a central sector scheme of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas aimed at unlocking India’s offshore hydrocarbon resources through large-scale public investment.
The programme not only focuses on drilling but covers the entire offshore exploration value chain. It includes fresh seismic surveys to map potential oil and gas reserves beneath the seabed, accelerated drilling in deepwater and ultra-deepwater regions, scientific drilling in frontier basins, and the development of common offshore infrastructure needed to produce and transport hydrocarbons.
It also provides for the creation of an integrated oil and gas manufacturing and services zone, besides investments in technology adoption, digital programme management, skill development and international collaboration to strengthen India’s offshore exploration ecosystem.
Offshore exploration, particularly in deepwater and ultra-deepwater areas, is expensive and technologically challenging, with no guarantee of commercial discoveries. The government hopes that through this funding, it can reduce exploration risks and encourage faster development of offshore resources.
According to the government, the programme is expected to help add more than 600 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent (MMTOE) to India’s hydrocarbon reserves over time. It also aims to increase domestic oil and gas production, create employment, strengthen indigenous manufacturing and attract investments across the exploration and production value chain.
Strengthening India’s energy security
The Cabinet approval comes at a time when India is trying to improve its energy security amid growing geopolitical uncertainties.
India currently imports around 88 percent of its crude oil requirement and nearly 50 percent of its natural gas, making it heavily dependent on overseas suppliers to meet domestic energy demand.
The West Asia conflict has exposed India’s vulnerability to energy supply. The conflict disrupted global oil markets and raised concerns over supplies through the strategic waterway of Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly half of India’s crude oil imports transit.
Against this backdrop, Samudra Manthan is being seen as a long-term effort to increase domestic production and reduce exposure to such external shocks. However, the discoveries made under the programme will take years to translate into commercial production, but expanding exploration today could improve India’s energy security over the next decade.
The government’s push also comes after a significant offshore discovery in the Andaman Basin. In June, state-run Oil India Ltd announced the presence of hydrocarbons in two of the three exploratory wells it drilled near Vijayapuram on the east coast of the Andaman Islands, after having reported natural gas in another exploratory well last year.
Although the discoveries are yet to be established as commercially viable, they are considered important because they indicate the presence of a working petroleum system in the Andaman Basin.
The findings have strengthened expectations that the region could hold larger hydrocarbon resources and are expected to encourage further exploration by both Indian companies and global energy firms. ThePrint had done a detailed story on the Andaman gas discovery.
The new scheme approved by the Cabinet also builds on reforms undertaken over the past decade, including opening most offshore acreage for exploration, modernising the upstream legal framework and strengthening the National Data Repository.
With the funding in place, the government is now focusing on execution across India’s offshore waters that can play a larger role in meeting the country’s future energy needs.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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