Dharmendra Pradhan set to become India's longest-serving Oil Minister

Ujjwala-man Dharmendra Pradhan is set to become India's longest-serving Oil Minister as he set out for a second stint, during which his priorities he said will be to raise domestic oil and gas production, expedite creation of national gas grid and create common market-friendly infrastructure.

Pradhan is the only oil minister after Atal Bihari Vajpayee government's Ram Naik to have completed full five-year term. But unlike Naik, he has been reassigned the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, which he had made a common household name through the free LPG cooking gas connection scheme Ujjwala in the first stint.

Late Murli Deora too had a five-year stint - from January 2006 to January 2011, as the oil minister but it was split over two governments, both led by the UPA.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi reposing faith in him again, Pradhan is set to break the records of Naik and Deora to be the longest-serving Oil Minister of the country.

Hailing from Odisha, where his almost weekly ...