The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas has set up a Hydrogen Corpus Fund in the wake of interest across the world on the use of hydrogen as an auto fuel.  The Government of India is of the view that the Indian Oil Industry should also work synergistically and in continuous coordination with reputed technological institutions to make headway in this frontier area.   With this object in mind, the Ministry has set up a hydrogen corpus fund of Rs.100 crore with contribution from Oil PSUs/OIDB as follows:

1.       OIDB                                Rs.40 crore

2.       ONGC, IOC, GAIL                Rs.16 crore each

3.       HPCL, BPCL                       Rs. 6 crore each.

Indian Oil Corporation Limited(IOCL) is nominated as the coordinator of the programme whereas the OIDB is directed to maintain the Bank Account of the fund.  OIDB has so far contributed an amount of Rs.10 crore during 2004-05 along with Rs.6 crore each from HPCL & BPCL.

A total Corpus of Rs......... Crore stood at the end of 31st March, 2010 in HCF. In addition to the above Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas has directed IOCL (R&D) to incure expenditure on the ongoing R&D which is subject to adjustments with there allocated contribution. Some more organisations like BPCL and ONGC have shown interest in implementing R&D projects usage of hydorgen as an alternative source of energy. Further contribution by OIDB will be made on requirement basis.