In 1955, the Government decided to develop oil and natural gas resources in the country, and set up Oil and Natural Gas Directorate under the then Ministry of Natural Resources and Scientific Research. The department was constituted with a nucleus of scientists from the Geological Survey of India.

At the helm of affairs was K D Malviya, the then Minister of Natural Resources. Malviya, a freedom fighter and Nehru loyalist, visited several countries to study the oil industry, and to facilitate training of Indian professionals for exploration.

"Our house and family was totally absorbed in the story of Indian oil,” says Malviya's daughter Asha Seth. “He did not directly discuss the challenges as the first oil minister, but I was party to it as he often discussed it with colleagues and friends,” adds Seth who now lives in Mumbai. She has held directorial positions in companies, and is the founder member and part of the governing council of The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage.

Malviya was completely absorbed by the challenge to discover oil, Seth recollects. “Often in his elected constituency (Basti in Uttar Pradesh), he would talk to the people about the excitement of oil and how its discovery would change the life of women, who otherwise had to tread miles to collect wood for fuel."

A socialist, Malviya was passionate about how scientists analysed exploration, "and what discovery of oil could ultimately do to Indian economy, therefore benefiting the poorer sections of society," says Seth.

It was just a decade after Independence, and there was considerable excitement about oil exploration. Malviya even earned the ire of foreign oil companies. Malviya, pushed by his wife, turned down an offer to become ambassador to the USSR.

"Advising my father, my mother had said, 'This job i.e. discovery of oil is more important for the poor of the country than going to USSR. You must stay back in India and not take this ambassadorial post’.”

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