New Delhi, Dec 30 (IANS) Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeeep Singh Puri on Tuesday highlighted the economic reforms being undertaken by the Narendra Modi government, which are paving the way for ease of business and future growth.

“The quieter work of governance, the steady, week after week clearing of bottlenecks – this cumulative push is what I mean by Reform Express 2025,” the minister remarked in a post on X.

He said that in an uncertain world where political churn has become the norm, Prime Minister Modi’s stable leadership stands out.

The minister further stated that the landmark trade agreements, modern labour codes, the Securities Market Code Bill, and the Indian Ports Act 2025 have created the foundation for future growth. Similarly, the SHANTI Bill is a huge leap for modernising India’s civil nuclear framework, he added.

“Put together, these reforms show a pattern: clean up the statute book, decriminalise the trivial, modernise labour compliance, strengthen market governance, digitise trade processes, fix logistics, and de-risk long-cycle energy,” the minister observed.

Highlighting the reforms in the oil and gas sector, the minister said that the ORD Amendment Act, 2025 and the new PNG Rules 2025 sought to reduce investor risk by emphasising stability of terms during the life of a lease, moving toward a single petroleum lease across the project life cycle, and putting clearer timelines on approvals.

The Oilfields (Regulation and Development) Amendment Act, 2025 (ORDA 2025) is a significant law enacted in April 2025 to boost energy security by making the upstream oil and gas sector investor-friendly, introducing streamlined processes for leases, allowing lease unitization, and setting financial penalties for violations instead of criminal ones, aiming to attract capital and technology for faster hydrocarbon exploration and production.

India’s new Petroleum and Natural Gas Rules, 2025, are transforming the sector by replacing old licenses with single, longer-term leases, setting a 180-day approval limit, clarifying lease value calculations, removing criminal penalties and replacing them with fines, and promoting infrastructure sharing to attract investment and boost domestic production, ushering in an investor-friendly era.

The minister further stated that OALP (Open Acreage Licensing Programme) continued widening the exploration map, with Round X offering 25 blocks across about 2 lakh square kilometres, and the National Deep Water Exploration Mission signalled a strategic focus on domestic resources, technology, and capability in complex exploration.

–IANS

sps/vd