OIL, DEVELOPMENT AND INDIA 71 of the order of $300 million following the doubling of the food export prices and the failure of the technology of "green revolution9 to maintain self-sufficiency in production. The nationalization ofAbadan refinery in 1951 by the Mossadeq government of Iran, and the consequent uncertainty about the availability of oil product imports, led to the establishment of a domestic refining industry in India during the fifties. Similarly, a positive aspect of the current oil crisis is that it underlines the need for fresh thinking on the country's energy policy. Excepting for a brief period under the direction of K D Malaviya, the exploration programme of the Indian government has always been half-hearted, unimaginative and lopsided. This is despite a large prospective oil-bearing area of 400,000 square miles, of which three quarters lie outside Gujarat and Assam, the two states which together accounted for one-third of 22.6 million tons of crude oil needed by Indian refineries in 1972. So far 95 per cent of the drilling efforts have been confined to these two states, and the extent of geological knowledge about the huge sedimentary area is negligible. Reorientation of Energy Policy While the outcome of exploratory efforts in oil are unpredictable, there is no shortage of other forms of commercial energy, particularly coal, lignite and hydro-electricity. India's current coal production at below 80 million tons is only a fraction of a proved reserve figure of 50,000 million tons, and a production figure up to ten times the current one would not jeopardize future supply. Further research would help to make ^oil from coal' commerically viable, following the path shown by China and South Africa in putting quality coal to productive use in this way. The uses of coal are many. It can easily replace diesel and furnace oil as locomotive and industrial fuel, and can substitute naphtha or gas feedstock for town-gas or fertilizer industries. One major constraint in expanding coal production is, however, the need for simultaneous growth in railway transport for carrying it from the coal-bearing eastern part to the industrialized western part of the country. According to one estimate the existing transport capacity would require to be trebled to carry out the modest fifth plan coal output target of 140 million tons. Apart from coal there is also a great potential for a large electricity industry based on the country's huge water resources, the largest in the world after USA and China. But again, like coal, the current production is far below the potential, for example, more than four-fifths of the Indian villages have no electricity at all. Electrification could displace diesel and furnance oil as industrial and locomotive fuel and as fuel for agricultural machines and as an illuminant and cooking fuel it could replace kerosene. On the other hand, unlike the western countries, where electricity is both a competitor and a consumer of oil, its generation