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Rising demand for fuel and other petroleum products amid flagging domestic crude oil output has resulted in India’s reliance on imported crude increasing to a record 87.3 per cent of domestic consumption in 2022-23, up from 85.5 per cent in 2021-22, according to data released by the oil ministry’s Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell (PPAC).
India’s oil import dependency was 84.4 per cent in 2020-21, 85 per cent in 2019-20, and 83.8 per cent in 2018-19.
The computation of the extent of import reliance is based on the domestic consumption of petroleum products and excludes petroleum product exports as those volumes don’t represent India’s demand.
With refining capacity of a little over 250 million tonnes per annum, India — the world’s third-largest consumer of crude oil and also one of its top importers – is a net exporter of petroleum products.
India’s domestic consumption of petroleum products in 2022-23 rose over 10 per cent year-on-year to a record 222.3 million tonnes, underscoring robust demand, particularly for transportation fuels (petrol and diesel).
However, domestic crude oil production for the year declined 1.7 per cent to 29.2 million tonnes. Crude oil imports in 2022-23 rose 9.4 per cent year-on-year to 232.4 million tonnes. In value terms, crude oil imports for the fiscal were at $158.3 billion, up from $120.7 billion in 2021-22, as per PPAC data.
Total production of petroleum products from domestic crude oil was 28.2 million tonnes in 2022-23, which means that the extent of India’s self-sufficiency in crude oil was just 12.7 per cent, down from 14.5 per cent in 2021-22.
In 2021-22, consumption of petroleum products sourced from indigenous crude oil was 29.3 million tonnes, while total domestic consumption was 201.7 million tonnes.
Govt & Politics
Sudan evacuation operation begins, 500 Indians board Navy ship (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
A day after the government moved two IAF aircraft and a Navy ship to evacuate Indians stranded in violence-hit Sudan, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said Monday that around 500 Indians have reached Port Sudan to board INS Sumedha, which has already reached there. More Indians are expected to board the ship soon before it returns home, he said.
Port Sudan is about 850 km away from Sudan’s capital city Khartoum. The situation has been volatile in Khartoum with fierce fighting between the country’s army and a paramilitary force being reported at various locations over the past 11 days.
Officials said the Navy ship option is being exercised since Sudan’s airspace has been closed, and that has been a challenge to evacuate Indians stuck in Sudan.
Launching “Operation Kaveri”, the evacuation mission, Jaishankar — who is currently in Guyana — said that India’s ships and aircraft are set to bring the Indians back home.
“Operation Kaveri gets underway to bring back our citizens stranded in Sudan. About 500 Indians have reached Port Sudan. More on their way,” Jaishankar tweeted. “Our ships and aircraft are set to bring them back home. Committed to assist all our brethren in Sudan.”
Meanwhile, France has evacuated some Indians along with citizens of 27 other countries as part of its evacuation mission.
Editorial
License to kill (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Nearly 40 per cent of members of the current Parliament have criminal cases pending against them. Most of them do not feel vulnerable or threatened as they are aware that it will take years for trials to conclude. They are not wrong.
A very serious case under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOC) that we registered in 2004 in the Crime Branch Mumbai has just been concluded in January 2023.
The main purpose of governance is to provide safety and security to citizens who elect their representatives for this role.
In India, we have this critical gap between the registration of a crime and the process coming to a logical end. This gap has become so humongous that extra-constitutional means are being adopted to fill it. As per the National Crime Records Bureau’s 2021 report, only 10,416 cases of murder were disposed of during the year with just a 42.4 per cent conviction rate.
The Law minister has admitted to more than 4.7 crore cases pending in various courts. As per NCRB data, in my cadre, the state of Maharashtra, 681 serious cases of murder/rape/others took five to 10 years to conclude and in 155 such serious cases, the trial was completed more than 10 years later.
The questionable methods of “bumping off” in private and “encounters” in uniform have thus gained public approval and approbation as the last resort. If a police officer or a civilian face a threat to his/her life, retaliation in self-defence is legally provided for. But these days, encounters are predicted by criminals themselves and eagerly anticipated by citizens.
Explained
India’s first water body census: why and what it says (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 1, Resources)
The Ministry of Jal Shakti has released the report of India’s first water bodies census, a comprehensive data base of ponds, tanks, lakes, and reservoirs in the country. The census was conducted in 2018-19, and enumerated more than 2.4 million water bodies across all states and Union Territories.
The Water Bodies: First Census Report considers “all natural or man-made units bounded on all sides with some or no masonry work used for storing water for irrigation or other purposes (e.g. industrial, pisciculture, domestic/ drinking, recreation, religious, ground water recharge etc.)” as water bodies. The water bodies are usually of various types known by different names like tank, reservoirs, ponds etc.
According to the report, “A structure where water from ice-melt, streams, springs, rain or drainage of water from residential or other areas is accumulated or water is stored by diversion from a stream, nala or river will also be treated as water body.”
As per the report, West Bengal’s South 24 Pargana has been ranked as the district having the highest (3.55 lakh) number of water bodies across the country. The district is followed by Andhra Pradesh’s Ananthapur (50,537) and West Bengal’s Howrah (37,301).
They were: 1) oceans and lagoons; 2) rivers, streams, springs, waterfalls, canals, etc. which are free flowing, without any bounded storage of water; 3) swimming pools; 4) covered water tanks created for a specific purpose by a family or household for their own consumption; 5) a water tank constructed by a factory owner for consumption of water as raw material or consumable; 6) temporary water bodies created by digging for mining, brick kilns, and construction activities, which may get filled during the rainy season; and 7) pucca open water tanks created only for cattle to drink water.
Why urea rules India’s farms (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Agriculture)
In May 2015, the Centre made it mandatory to coat all indigenously manufactured and imported urea with neem oil. This was followed by replacing 50-kg bags with 45-kg ones in March 2018, and the launch of liquid ‘Nano Urea’ by the Indian Farmers’ Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO) in June 2021.
None of the above measures — checking illegal diversion for non-agricultural use, smaller bags, and increasing nitrogen use efficiency — have succeeded in reducing urea consumption.
Sales of urea crossed a record 35.7 million tonnes (mt) in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023. Consumption did dip in the initial two years after neem-coating was fully enforced from December 2015, seemingly making it difficult for the heavily subsidised fertiliser to be used by plywood, particle board, textile dye, cattle feed and synthetic milk makers.
But that trend reversed from 2018-19. Urea sales in 2022-23 were about 5.1 mt higher than in 2015-16 and over 9 mt than in 2009-10, before the introduction of the so-called nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) regime in April 2010. All other fertilisers, barring single super phosphate (SSP), have registered much lower increases or even declines.
Under NBS, the government fixed a per-kg subsidy for each fertiliser nutrient: Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potash (K) and sulphur (S). This was as against the earlier product-specific subsidy regime.
Linking subsidy to nutrient content was intended to promote balanced fertilisation by discouraging farmers from applying too much urea, di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) and muriate of potash (MOP). These are fertilisers with high content of a single nutrient: Urea (46% N), DAP (46% P plus 18% N) and MOP (60% K).
Economy
India jumps 6 places on World Bank’s logistics performance index (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India has climbed six places on the World Bank’s Logistic Performance Index (LPI) 2023, now ranking 38th in the 139 countries index, as a result of significant investments in both soft and hard infrastructure as well as technology.
India was ranked 44th on the index in 2018 and has now climbed to 38th in the 2023 listing. India’s performance has drastically improved from 2014, when it was ranked 54th on the LPI.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government had announced PM Gati Shakti initiative, a National Master Plan for multimodal connectivity, in October 2021 to reduce logistics cost and boost the economy by 2024-25.
In 2022, the prime minister had launched the National Logistics Policy (NLP) to ensure quick last-mile delivery, end transport-related challenges, save time and money of the manufacturing sector and ensure desired speed in the logistics sector.
These policy interventions are fructifying, which can be seen in India’s jump in LPI and its other parameters. According to the report, India’s rank moved up five places in infrastructure score from 52nd in 2018 to 47th in 2023.
It climbed to 22nd spot for international shipments in 2023 from 44th in 2018 and moved four places up to 48th in logistics competence and equality.
In timelines, India witnessed a 17-place jump in rankings, whereas it moved up three places in rank in tracking and tracing to 38th. The report quotes modernisation and digitalisation as a reason for emerging economies, like India, to leapfrog advanced countries.
The report said: “Since 2015, Government of India has invested in trade-related soft and hard infrastructure connecting port gateways on both coasts to the economic poles in the hinterland.”
Technology has been a critical component of this effort, with implementation under a public-private partnership of a supply chain visibility platform, which contributed to remarkable reductions of delays.
NICDC Logistics Data Services Limited applies radio frequency identification tags to containers and offers consignees end-to-end tracking of their supply chain.