It is said that India has substantial reserves of shale oil and gas, which can feed the needs of the country for quarter century. However, tapping of the resource does not appear to be high on the agenda. Discuss critically the availability and issues involved.

Shale oil and gas are hydrocarbons locked in low-permeability shale, extractable by horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing. Early assessments (US EIA) put India's technically recoverable shale gas at around 96 trillion cubic feet — enough, on paper, to serve demand for decades.

Availability

• Prospective basins: Cambay (Gujarat), Krishna-Godavari, Cauvery, the Damodar valley Gondwana basin, and parts of the Indo-Gangetic and Assam-Arakan basins.
• Estimates remain provisional: detailed appraisal drilling is limited, so recoverable volumes are uncertain.

Why exploitation is not high on the agenda

• Water intensity: fracturing one well needs millions of litres; the Cambay and Cauvery tracts are already water-stressed, creating a direct conflict with agriculture.
• Dense population and small landholdings make the large surface footprint and multi-well pads socially contentious; land acquisition is slow.
• Environmental risks: possible aquifer contamination by fracking fluids, methane leakage, produced-water disposal and induced seismicity, with a still-evolving regulatory framework.
• Technology and economics: unlike the US, India lacks a mature drilling-services ecosystem and pipeline density; cheap imported LNG and the renewables push weaken the investment case.
• Policy fragmentation initially reserved shale for national oil companies (2013 policy); the shift to the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy and Open Acreage Licensing (2016 onwards) permits unified exploration of all hydrocarbons, but activity is still nascent.

India should first complete honest resource appraisal and frame water-safeguard regulations; selective, well-regulated pilots — not a US-style rush — suit Indian conditions.