Oil India sets up Rs 50 crore startup fund for new ideas in oil and gas sector

Oil India (OIL) has set up an OIL startup fund of Rs 50 crore to encourage new “out of the box” ideas related to the oil and gas sector, particularly in the Northeast. The oil exploration major’s chairman-cum-managing director Utpal Bora said in a press conference on Sunday that the initiative was in line with the Centre’s ‘Start-up India’ initiative. [caption id=“attachment_2891942” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] “The OIL Start-Up fund is to encourage students, young entrepreneurs and institutions to come out with out of the box ideas for the benefit of the oil and gas sector that is contributing enormously to the growth of the economy,” Bora said. The initiative was to create an ecosystem that was conducive for growth of start-ups in the oil and gas sector, which has a huge scope for application of technology-enabled ideas, he said. “Currently the sector faces various critical challenges and new ideas are required to negotiate those challenges. OIL will be partnering with institutes of excellence in the Northeast like IIT-Guwahati to take this initiative forward,wherein the institutes will facilitate ‘idea incubation’ for carrying out studies and experiments,” Bora said.