Industry creates Rs.320 crore of venture capital fund

The Indian energy sector, with an investment potential of US$300 billion, has launched a Start-up programme for developing new business models, marketing plans, technology and innovations.

Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan underlined the importance of start-ups, saying the Public Sector Units (PSUs) in the oil and gas sector have set up venture capital funds to encourage start-ups based on innovative ideas in the energy sector.

Speaking at the launch function of Start-up programme on 25 October 2017, he said the initiative will change the status of the youth of India country from job seeker to that of job provider as envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Pradhan said the business partnership between the start-ups and the PSUs of Petroleum Ministry will create a new benchmark for growth and job creation as India has a huge potential for investment of over US$300 billion in the energy sector in the next ten years.

He stressed that start-ups in the oil and gas sector are not short-term investments, but a long-term commitment.

There are a wide variety of opportunities that present a wide spectrum of options for launching start-up initiatives, he added.

He called upon the oil PSUs to take advantage of the emerging technologies in the oil sector with the help of the youth to match the international standards.

Backing the spirit of innovation, 10 public sector undertakings under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, including the IOCL, ONGC, EIL, OIL, NRL, BPCL, HPCL, GAIL and MRPL, have created a corpus of Rs.320 crore to support start-up initiatives.

Since the launch of the scheme by the PSUs, there has been a constant flow of applications and some extremely innovative ideas have come through. The Start- up ideas have been received from a varying age group (from a fresh engineering graduate to a 70-year-old entrepreneur) from across the country.

The 10 oil PSUs have together selected nearly 30 start-up projects for support in the first round of the scheme. Some of the many innovative projects that have made it after rigorous evaluation include:

Electronic leak detector for detecting body and bung leak of LPG cylinders;
Self – sustaining low-maintenances toilets, or eco-toilets;
Multiuse Fuel from Agricultural Waste Biomass;
Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) for underwater inspections;
Converting waste plastics to high value petroleum fuels;
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