Hardeep Singh Puri Retained As Oil Minister After A Scam-Free Tenure

Hardeep Singh Puri took charge as Union Petroleum & Natural Gas Minister of India. He retains the cabinet after navigating India through two back-to-back oil crises.

It is also worth noting that there have been no contracting scams in the award of any project in housing and urban development and no alarming headlines in the oil ministry, which in previous regimes had seen multiple controversies.

He also served as Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister under the Modi 2.0 government. He not only ensured timely delivery of the new Parliament building, but he also navigated the country through twin oil crises—an oil price spike and the fallout of the Russia-Ukraine war on net-importing nations like India.

He ensured that India did not feel the heat as prices began to climb in the final quarter of 2021 and spiked after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. State-owned oil firms under his administrative control froze retail rates, suffering unprecedented losses. When rates fell, he allowed them to recoup their losses.

This prevented inflation from rising while maintaining oil profitability. In fact, oil PSUs booked record profits in the fiscal ended March 31, 2024.

Puri also resisted Western pressure, allowing oil firms to purchase discounted oil from Russia, which some in Europe and the US had shunned following the Ukraine invasion. From minuscule levels in the pre-war era, Russian oil made up almost 40% of all the oil India imported.

This helped cement India's ties with Moscow and provide oil firms with a cushion to absorb losses on selling petrol and diesel at rates below cost.

Puri successfully defended India's stance and balanced it with continued engagement with Saudi Arabia-led OPEC, whose share in the country's oil imports fell drastically.

The 72-year-old minister, born in Delhi, was an Indian Foreign Service officer of the 1974 batch. He also claims to be affiliated with the ABVP, the students' body aligned with the BJP, during his student days at the Hindu College of Delhi University, where he received his bachelor's and master's degrees in history.

After retiring from the service, Puri officially joined the BJP in January 2014. He was inducted into the Council of Ministers as Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Housing and Urban Affairs in September 2017. He was given the additional charge of Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Civil Aviation and Minister of State for Commerce and Industry in May 2019.

In his four-decade-long diplomatic tenure, Puri served as the Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013.

Previously, he had been the chairman of the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee, president of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) from August 2011 to November 2012, secretary-general of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism in New York, and vice-president of the International Peace Institute.

Additionally, he held significant positions in Brazil, Japan, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom.

Between 1988 and 1991, he was the coordinator of the UNDP/UNCTAD Multilateral Trade Negotiations Project to help developing countries in the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations. He also served as the chairman of the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee from January 2011 to February 2013.

(Text inputs from PTI)