The Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan has rejected the rumours of transfer of headquarters of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) from Dehradun.
The union minister gave this assurance to the chief minister of Uttarakhand, Trivendra Singh Rawat when the later called him over telephone on Tuesday. Pradhan clearly told the CM that there is no move to shift the ONC headquarters to Delhi.
He also informed that ONGC Permanent Account Number (PAN) will also not be shifted from Uttarakhand to Delhi. Pradhan said that ONGC has very old Tand strong association with Uttarakhand and no such decision would be taken that adversely affects Uttarakhand directly or indirectly.
The news that the ONGC has decided to shift its headquarters to Delhi appeared in a section of media.
It also mentioned that the oil and gas major has written a letter to the income tax commissioner of Uttarakhand to shift its Permanent Account Number (PAN) to Delhi. It is learnt that the ONGC deposits an annual tax which is to the tune of Rs 8000 crore.
The shifting of PAN was mentioned as the precursor in the processing of shifting of ONGC Head office from Dehradun. In the past too rumours about shifting of head office of ONGC has surfaced time and again.
ONGC, a Maharatna company is the largest crude oil and natural gas company in India. It contributes about 70 percent of Indian domestic production of crude oil. It is the only public sector Indian company which features in Fortune’s ‘Most Admired Energy Companies’ list.
ONGC is one of the most valuable public sector enterprises working on Indian stock exchanges (BSE and NSE).
The market capitalisation of the company is estimated at whopping Rs 245654 million.