NEW DELHI: Atal Bihari Vajpayee set off far-reaching reforms to spur rapid growth in India’s energy sector and developed the doctrine of securing the country’s energy needs through acquisition of oilfields abroad, building strategic oil storage and promoting ‘swadeshi’ biofuels.

But if one were to identify one of his government’s reforms that caught people’s imagination, it would be the highways programme – or more precisely the ‘Golden Qudrilateral’. The North-South, East-West corridor gave Indian the taste of world-class highways for the first time and offered a quick alternative for inter-city travel, besides laying the foundation of the idea of developing industrial clusters and townships along the way.

It was Vajpayee’s leadership that allowed the NDA-I government to abolish subsidy by freeing up government control on petrol and diesel prices in April 2002 without evoking any public outcry, though the decision was taken by the United Front government. This changed the market complexion with private sector Reliance, Essar and Shell investing in creating chain of outlets and thousands of jobs.

His government introduced clean-burning CNG in Delhi — albeit with a little nudge from the Supreme Court — and laid the roadmap of improving the quality of India’s motor fuels to European standards.

It was under Vajpaee that the government began awarding exploration blocks through bidding, a move that kindled interest in India’s offshore basins and resulted in the discovery of KG-D6. It was the biggest offshore discovery at that point before getting sucked into a vortex of the promoter’s spat with the government and geographical surprises.

With ‘Hydrocarbon Vision 2025’ Vajpayee placed energy security on the high table of policymaking. This vision introduced ‘energy diplomacy’ in New Delhi’s international dealings and led to India’s first big-ticket overseas acquisition by way of 20% stake in Russia’s Sakhalin-I for an investment of $1.7 billion. This deal added another strategic dimension to India’s defence ties with Moscow and led to acquisition of oil and gas assets in 20 countries.

Another takeaway from the energy security doctrine was the decision to use underground rock caverns as strategic oil storage, which are becoming a reality now.

The Vajpayee government also laid the foundation of all the power sector reforms being talked about currently with the Electricity Act of 2003. While separation of distribution and generation of discoms as well as leapfrogging generation capacity with Ultra-Mega Power Plants met with success, distribution reforms lagged in Centre-state politics. But the Act succeeded in putting the issues of subsidy, inefficiency and theft firmly on the discussion table.

Many of these reforms fell prey to political expediency during the UPA’s decade-long rule, though there were some efforts to revive them towards the end. But it was too late by then. It is now the Modi government, that has revived, refined and taken many of them forward, though they are not fully immune to politics.

