Ministries race to meet PM’s targets

It is a race against time for the petroleum and new and renewable energy ministries to meet the targets that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set for them to achieve by the year 2022. Many within the government view the targets as “stiff”, to put it mildly. In a recently-held high-level meeting with the two ministries, Mr Modi, after reviewing the progress of the two key sectors, is learnt to have directed the petroleum ministry to expedite domestic exploration in order to achieve 43 million tonnes of crude oil production by 2022 and 175 gega watts (gw) of renewable energy capacity by the same period. Out of this, 100 gw is to come through solar energy alone.

Mr Modi is said to have emphasised during the meeting that there was an urgent need to increase domestic crude oil production to take it from the existing 37 million tonnes to 43 million tonnes by the year 2022.

Highly-placed sources informed this newspaper that in the light of the existing scenario, when only 48 per cent of the country’s total sedimentary area had been explored till now, the target of achieving 43 million tonnes of crude oil production in the next six years was indeed an ambitious one.

The target is all the more stiff considering the fact that the Government is already stuck in arbitration with private entities over poor production of crude from its Krishna-Godavari fields. This too, sources said, has led to a considerable delay in the exploration process.

Sources further added that with the country’s power infrastructure being inadequate, and investments in the relatively new field of renewable energy not currently forthcoming, the targets outlined for the sector would not be that easy to achieve.

The meeting, which was held in tandem with Government think tank Niti Aayog, was a continuation of a similar exercise which the Prime Minister had undertaken on May 30 this year, when he had set up similar targets for the highways, railways and other major infrastructure sectors.

During his interaction with officials of the petroleum and new & renewable energy ministries, Mr Modi is reported to have also underlined the need to set up new gas pipelines across the country.

While the Government is hopeful that the Turkmenistan Afghanistan Pakistan India (TAPI) gas pipeline will help in providing the natural resource to the entire stretch from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, right up to West Bengal (which face acute shortage of natural gas), once it is completed, sources privy to the development pointed out that the Prime Minister said during the review meeting that there was a need to set up a new network of gas pipelines to facilitate the increased supply in the future.

With renewable energy being Mr Modi’s pet subject, the Prime Minister exhorted the New & Renewable Energy Ministry officials to sort out issues related to the funding of renewable energy projects.

He has set up a target of achieving a capacity of 175 gw of renewable energy by 2022, out of which solar energy is to contribute 100 gw. Of this 100 gw, 40 gw would be contributed through the installation of rooftop solar equipment, which required a lot of investment, sources said.

Right now India’s installed renewable energy capacity is around 38 gw.

Major capacity expansion will be required to reach these figures by 2022, as currently India’s capacity addition is around 3 gw annually on an average. This needs to be hiked by more than 10 times if the aforementioned figures are to be met, sources aware of the development said.

Also, transmission infrastructure would require overhauling apart from resolving the poor financial condition of the distribution companies, if the Government wanted to have a realistic chance of meeting these targets, they added.