To win licences, companies must promise to invest in exploration, which at the bare minimum will include seismic surveys.
In order to win licences, casino operators are obliged to create jobs in poor areas, to hire black subcontractors, and to offer shares in the business to politically favoured investors, such as trade unions or black-owned firms.
Britain's BG and Norway's Statoil have won licences to exploit the bulk of the gas found so far.
Some institutions won licences through political connections, and returned the favour by lending money to ruling-party cronies.
That cost the Indian treasury an estimated $40 billion.To make matters worse, many of the firms that won licences appear not to have been qualified.
Cuadrilla, GDF Suez, Hutton Energy, UK Oil and Gas, and Aurora Energy Resources won licences; the biggest winner was Ineos, the Anglo-Swiss chemicals group, with 21 licences.
The group, which has already won licences for the cities of Cardiff, Bristol, and Newcastle, beat four other bidders for the right to broadcast the channel Made In Leeds.
Ineos plans to meet with local communities in the regions where they have won licences in an effort to bring them on side.
Centrica is among a group of oil and gas companies, including the local group Statoil, which have won licences from the Norwegian government.
A former manager of the Big Chill Festival, she began applying her negotiating skills to gain permission for festivals on UK parks and country estates, even winning licences to run two events during the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak.
Two firms won licences and then sold slices to foreign firms: Unitech, primarily a property company, was part-bought by Norway's Telenor; and nearly half of Swan Telecom was bought by Abu Dhabi's Etisalet ETEL.On November 29th Mr Raja's replacement, Kabil Sibal, said he would ask five firms why he should not strip them of 85 2G licences that they bought in 2008.
