Chalasani also said that rather than following the government's stated objective of converting the Indian upstream sector into a competitive market, the oil ministry has turned it into a duopoly, with Reliance Industries and the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp as the main beneficiaries.

He said while the state-run company owns 57 percent of the oil assets, as much as 30 percent was with Reliance Industries. 'The others -- more than 50 players -- have just 13 percent share of the acreage under the new auction rounds.'

Chalasani, during the course of the conference call with reporters, also went on to quote The Times of London as saying British Gas, Total and Royal Dutch Shell and Italy's ENI had opted to stay away because of the fear of nationalisation of pricing mechanisms.

He said in the latest round of auctions for 57 blocks for which bids were invited, 20 percent, or 12 blocks, had no taker, 30 percent, or 19 blocks, attracted just one participant, and for 25 percent, or 16 blocks, the production sharing contracts are yet to be signed.

'The top private foreign players such as Exxon, Shell, Chevron, Statoil and Conoco Phillips have never participated in a single round of auction,' Chalasani said, adding what was appalling was that such lack of interest was exhibited despite crude oil prices touching record highs.