New Delhi has also formulated a new open acreage licensing policy, which allows foreign firms to bid for the oil and gas blocks of their choice. India plans to auction 80 new oil and gas blocks in August. While India is opening its domestic acreage, its state-run companies are looking to tap energy sources from various countries including Syria, Russia, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Surinam, and Turkey.

State-controlled Oil and Natural Gas Corp. is planning to invest $2.44 billion in oil and gas exploration in four northeastern states, Tripura, Mizoram, Assam, and Nagaland. Overall, ONGC’s capital spending will increase by about 150 percent over the previous five-year period.

The state-run Gas Authority of India Ltd. will invest about $6 billion laying new pipelines and expanding its petrochemical business during the next five years, hoping to nearly triple its revenues to some $11 billion over that time. GAIL is promoting an integrated petrochemical complex proposed for Assam at a cost of $1.3 billion. The complex has been configured with an annual capacity of 220,000 tons of ethylene and 60,000 tons of propylene.

In one of its biggest investments in India, the steel giant Arcelor Mittal will invest close to $1 billion in a joint venture with India’s state-run Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. to build the Bhatinda refinery.

But these investments are only part of the picture. India is drastically short of electric-power generating capacity. New Delhi wants to add 78,000 megawatts of new capacity over the next five years. At a cost of $1 million per megawatt – a conservative estimate for new construction – those power plants alone could cost $78 billion, and the final price tag may be substantially higher.