Are we the most generous nation on earth?

"Over the long term, the return on investment on exploration on average across the world is very poor," wrote P Nichols and R Tongia. "Exploring the earth for economically viable (high-grade) mineral deposits is a high risk improbable activity." "So, what do clever countries do? They don't gamble, they act as the casino and entice gamblers, generally small junior exploration companies, to spend global capital in their country. However, for this to work, the host country has to tolerate a few jackpot winners, who make major finds of tier-1 assets and are able to profit from their luck. But just like a casino, these jackpots are smaller than the total sum of failed exploration projects." What has India done? Our laws stipulate that exploration companies have to hand over their winnings to the government which will then reimburse the company for their expense. After deducting humongous taxes, no doubt. No wonder the government's auction of offshore oil fields for exploration was shunned by all Indian or foreign companies, except Vedanta and state-owned ONGC. So, we paid other countries $87.725 billion to buy oil in the financial year 2017-18. This, despite having a coastline stretching for 7,517 km. The number of offshore drilling rigs in the world is expected to rise from 389 units in 2010 to just under 500 in 2017. Because of stupid laws, "In India, the number of prospecting licenses the government has issued has dropped from 360 a couple of years ago to only 21 in the last 12 months and the number in which the actual work has been undertaken has dropped from 156 to 5 in the same period." What has the government done? It has set up a fund of Rs 4.5 billion to pay for exploration, but, "Fortunately, thanks to the workings (if not inefficiency) of the government, much of the money is yet to be spent." Sadly, no longer. There are 35 rigs working in Indian waters now. In 2016-17 ONGC drilled 501 wells at a cost of Rs 157.47 billion, of which 334 were onshore and the remaining 167 were offshore. Since ONGC is owned by the government it is gambling with taxpayer funds. We are having to beg oil producing countries to accept payment in rupees. The cost of offshore drilling varies from $30-50,000 per day in shallow waters to $300-400,000 per day in deeper waters. Our export of textiles and clothing, considered low tech, is $40 billion compared to China's $269 billion and our productivity is less than that of Bangladesh and Vietnam, wrote R Singh. Because of restrictive labor laws, higher minimum wages and higher taxes on synthetic fibers. We choose to let others win. We choose to remain poor.