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How India Is Chipping Away at Its Fossil-Fuel Dependence — and the Leverage of Foreign Oil Giants

When I read this recent Livemint piece on how China has methodically diluted the power foreign oil suppliers once held over it, I couldn’t help but tumble down a rabbit hole: How is India doing on the same front? What I found is worth sharing — so here’s a snapshot of how India is working, on multiple fronts, to make sure its oil bill — and the geopolitical pressure that comes with it — keeps shrinking.

India’s energy playbook over the past 15 years reads like a multi-track sprint: put millions of EVs on the road, carpet the countryside with solar panels and wind turbines, squeeze more ethanol into every litre of petrol, revive an ambitious nuclear program, and coax crude from deep-sea rocks that once looked unreachable. The goal is bluntly strategic—trim a crude-import bill that still meets 85% of oil demand and deny potential suppliers the pressure point that New Delhi has worried about since the 1970s oil shocks.

A Quiet EV Boom Accelerates

Annual electric vehicle (EV) sales in India jumped from just 150,000 in 2018 to 1.94 million in 2024. Most of these are two- and three-wheelers — more than a million electric scooters and rickshaws hit Indian streets in FY 2024 alone.

A key driver has been the ₹11,500-crore FAME-II scheme, which knocks up to 40% off sticker prices for mass-market EVs. Extended through July 2024 (with a ₹500 crore boost), FAME-II has helped build a fledgling but fast-growing charging network. Over 25,500 charge points are live — the target is a 5-to-1 EV-to-connector ratio by 2030.

Meanwhile, a parallel ₹44,000-crore production-linked incentive (PLI) plan is pulling battery and electronics manufacturing closer to home, loosening India’s dependence on Chinese supply chains.

Renewables Muscle into the Grid

India’s clean power capacity has quietly quadrupled to 220 GW since 2011, now making up over 42% of total installed capacity. The pace is only picking up: in just the first half of 2025, India added 22 GW of solar and wind — more than some entire OECD blocs. Solar alone has crossed 105 GW, and developers enjoy free interstate transmission for green electrons through 2030 — a big deal for the economics of large projects.

Biofuels and Green Hydrogen: New Pillars


Ethanol blending has hit a monthly peak of 19.8% this year, putting India on track for a nationwide E20 rollout next year — five years ahead of schedule. That’s already meant over ₹1 lakh crore saved in forex and greenhouse gas emissions reduced by 19.2 million tons between 2014 and 2021 alone.

Next up is green hydrogen: under the National Green Hydrogen Mission, India aims to produce 5 million metric tonnes a year by 2030, backed by 125 GW of dedicated renewables — saving another ₹1 lakh crore in fossil imports annually.

Nuclear Power Stages a Comeback

Nuclear energy is getting a second wind, with installed capacity up 70% in a decade. By 2031-32, India plans to push capacity to 22.48 GW, with 21 reactors under construction.

A milestone: the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam has finished fuel loading — when it goes live, India will be only the second country after Russia to run a commercial breeder. A new ₹20,000-crore Nuclear Energy Mission aims for small modular reactors (SMRs) by 2033 and a stretch goal of 100 GW by 2047.

Digging Deeper for Domestic Oil and Gas

While the renewables sprint is real, India is also drilling harder at home. State giant ONGC drilled a 35-year high of 578 wells last year, after naval “No-Go” zones were lifted across offshore acreage.

The company plans to spend ₹1.3 trillion by 2026 to unlock deep and ultra-deep reserves — from the Krishna-Godavari basin to the Andaman Sea. New finds like the “Suryamani” and “Vajramani” could help cushion production declines from India’s aging fields.

The Payoff — and the Road Ahead

Yes, the crude bill is still huge: $160 billion in 2024. Land and grid bottlenecks slow renewable parks; EV chargers are still scarce beyond big cities; nuclear is hostage to cost overruns. But every percentage point shaved off oil imports — whether through ethanol, electrons, uranium, or sodium-cooled breeder reactors — shrinks a vulnerability that’s haunted Delhi since the 1970s oil shocks.

Taken together, India’s multi-pronged push hints that foreign barrels — and the leverage they bring — may slowly but surely be losing their hold on the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

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