 So, essentially, a political journalist has been asked to moderate a session on as hard-core sector as energy from the Indian economy. I'll ask Honorable Minister Dharmine Pradhan, Minister for Union, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, as also a steal, to come on the stage and make his opening remarks. And then, of course, I'll invite the panel, and then we'll have the discussion. Minister. Thank you, Prince. I am delighted to join the deliberations at the Indian Economy Summit with a thematic focus for this session on re-energizing India. I wish to compliment the World Economy Forum, the leading, the discourse on energy-related matters under the platform of shaping the future of energy. It is only natural that the global energy deliberations pay close attention to the developments in the energy sector in India. This has a lot to do with the emergence of India as the third-largest energy consumers in the world, and the fact that India is playing a leading role globally by implementing several transformative initiatives to reduce energy poverty in the country. Today, we are meeting in the backdrop of a major oil and gas crisis resulting from attacks on Saudi oil processing plants at Aba Kaik and Quraiz. The price volatility and the concern about sustained oil supplies made consuming countries vulnerable. Given the fact that India, along with most South Asian countries, have a major dependency on crude oil and gas imports, so securing affordable and sustainable energy figures as a top agenda for all these countries, including India. As we seek to transform India into a $5 trillion economy, it is imperative to increase energy availability to 1.3 billion people whose per capita energy consumption is lower than the global average. The energy demand thus is estimated to grow at 4.0 percent per annum up to 2035. Our approach to re-energizing India will be guided by energy vision of India as initiated by Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modiji, covering the four pillars of energy success, energy efficiency, energy sustainability, and energy security. As part of our integrated approach towards energy planning, energy justice will also be a key objective in itself. Dear friends, Addressing United Nations Climate Action Summit in 2019, last week in Newark, Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi spelt out the elements of our approach to meet energy demand, keeping in view India's strong commitment to cope 21 and sustainable development. India will increase the share of non-fossil fuels by increasing renewable energy capacity to much beyond 175 gigawatt by 2022 and latter up to 450 gigawatt. We will make our transport sector green through e-mobility. The proportion of biofuel blend in petrol and diesel will be increased as we re-orientate energy policies. In this age of unprecedented energy transition, we will lay emphasis on advancing inclusive access, secure, affordable, and sustainable energy services. We are conscious of mounting challenges ahead of us. Our demand determination to end energy poverty in the country is evident from the outcomes of path-breaking policies and initiatives taken during the last five years and also thus set in motion since June this year. In this pursuit, we are paying close attention to innovation and clean energy. With our Prime Minister's vision of neighborhood fast, India has taken initiative to develop mutually beneficial energy corridors with other South Asian countries. The commissioning of India-Napal Petroleum Product Pipeline last month marks a new era. In this regard, India is also partnering with Maldives in changing over to energy-efficient LED bulbs. This is a definite need for integrating energy sources, be it petroleum products, LPG or LNG in South Asia, to regional electricity and gas grids. We are also working to reduce the carbon footprints by transfer of hydropower from Nepal and Bhutan to India and to the countries in the region. India, through the Sobhagya program, aims to achieve 100% electrification households in India by this year. Our ranking in World Bank is of getting electricity improved from 111 in 2014 to 29 in 2018. A blue flame revolution is transforming India's energy landscape, LPG coverage has reached more than 90% from 55% five years ago. The 80 million LPG connection was handed over last month. Our success in Ujwala program has attracted enormous global interest, including many developing countries keen to emulate this model of providing clean cooking fuel. Our immediate objective will be to enhance use of LPG in the South Asian region. We will for the first time be sourcing LPG from Bangladesh for our northeastern states. Just two days back, the national capital region moved into BS6 grade fuel equivalent to Euro 6 standards six months ahead of time. Cleaner fuels for transportation will continue to be an area of high priority. India is now leading the global movement, the embracing renewable energy sources. India's energy diplomacy resulted in the establishment of the international solar alliance. We are leading an example with a rapid growth in installed solar energy generation capacity targeted to reach 100 gigawatt by 2022. This is made possible with significant improvements in technology, price and performance. Moreover, creative business models have smart investments in this sector, where we are on our way to achieve this target. India has more than double the renewable power installed in the country of 80 to gigawatt in 2019. During the last five years, to gear up the significant expansion of the renewable energy power, apart from MNRE institutions such as IREDA, SCCI, as well as state and central regulators would be promoting their relative roles. Prime Minister Modi's vision of creating agri-entrepreneurs by transforming Anandata to Urjandata is another major transformative change taking shape in the country. Alternative fuels like ethanol, second-generation ethanol, compressed biogas and biodiesels will help in reducing country's crude oil import dependency. A major initiative to develop a gas-based economy is underway. Over 16,000 km of gas pipeline has been built and an additional 11,000 km is under construction. With the 10th bid round, per city gas distribution completed, it will cover 400 districts and will extend coverage 70% of our population. Another testimony of success in major path-breaking initiative is evident from the fact that India recorded the highest growth of foreign energy investments anywhere in the world, which touched $85 billion. Our target to transform India to a $5 trillion economy by 2024 requires a gradual and a major energy transition by deploying all sources of energy. We seek to provide energy justice to all the country with wider supply of environmental compatibility energy sources to its vast population. I am confident that the deliberations today would immensely enrich our understanding further in this area of high importance of India as well as other South Asian countries. I thank you for your kind attention. I believe we can start with the discussion inviting the panel. I'll invite Gauri Johar, she's Executive Director of Integrated Solutions, Energy White Perspectives, IHS Market India, Mr. Sumant Sinha, Chairman and Managing Director Renew Power India, and Mr. Mukesh Sarana, he's Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. I believe we had Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee also, but he had to drop out for some reasons. So this essentially completes the panel. I am Abhishek Kapoor, I am Executive Editor of the Republic Media Network, which is a network run and owned by Mr. Arunabh Goswami. I'll just give a brief introduction of our panelist, Ms. Johar, is essentially into consultancy and research in the energy and specifically guest sector. Mr. Sumant Sinha is, as I said, Chairman and Managing Director of Renew Power, and they are into renewables. They have their largest renewable portfolio as an IPP in the country, and Mr. Surana of course is a technocrat who has been with the HPCL for the longest time and is now its Chairman and Managing Director. So I believe, I'm sitting with experts of the sector, so I would prefer that I just moderate and they speak. The topic is re-energizing India. Now the minister, when he was speaking, he has actually given a certain direction where we can actually have this discussion. Now, when we say energy, India as of now has about 360 gigawatt of capacity installed capacity and going by our growth requirements and the population growth, we are looking at about three times that requirement of present requirement over the next decade. Now as of now, of the 360 gigawatt, about 60 percent comes from coal and the rest from other sources, so about 2 percent from nuclear, 12 percent from hydro and about 20-25 percent from other sources which includes petroleum, gas and other sources, biofuels. So now coal is dirty, nuclear is dangerous, it's renewable to the panacea, that's how I would like to start the debate with. Ms. Johar, if you can give your initial thoughts and then Mr. Sinha and then Mr. Surana. So I think renewables in terms of the climate footprint is definitely one of the options. It is however a part of the mix when we look at, because there are certain challenges on intermittency and variability that come with renewables just naturally because the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow all the time. And so you need a sort of a solutions where there's a partner fuels which can partner with renewables. Those solutions typically in many countries and I think we are looking at policy options on that is gas-based power. That how can gas-based power be a complement to renewables in terms of... Right, so you'll focus on gas, I mean, fine, so... Yeah, is this... Yeah, this is working. It's fine, okay, I can add that, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, no thanks a lot Abhishek. No, look, I think the question that you've posed is a very interesting one and I think Minister Pradhan also talked about it to some extent. As you said, currently the installed capacity is 350 gigawatts or thereabouts. Renewables accounts for about... For about 70, about 80 gigawatts, but in generation terms it's about 10% right now. Now, if we look at the fact that power demand is going at about 5% to 6% every year, by 2030 we would be looking at doubling the power demand that we have right now. Today we consume about 1.2 trillion units. In 12 years we'll be consuming about 2.4 trillion units. Now, if you look at the increase of 1.2, the question is where is that going to come from? Fundamentally is your question. Now, the interesting part is that let's assume we prioritize what we want to put into the mix first, right? And we say that because renewables is clean, it's modular, it's easy to set up, let's say we prioritize that and say, let's do as much of renewables as we can, right? And let's not put any constraining factors on it for the time being. What we want to understand is how practical are the targets. So I'll just come to that. That's what I'm getting into. Now, the reality is that just given the situation that we have in India in terms of the distribution company, financial health, the intermittency issue, the sheer physicality of actually executing large number of projects on the ground, given the fact that we're doing about 10 to 15 gigawatts every year of renewable capacity, you know, at best, to my mind over the next 10 to 12 years, we can maybe double that, maybe make it 25, 30 gigawatts every year. And then, of course, it bumps us against the government's target of four and 50 gigawatts. Let's assume we get to that number by 2030. Now, in terms of sheer amount of generation of power, that does not allow us to meet this incremental 1.2 trillion units of demand that we're going to be requiring to meet. What it does is it gets us approximately half the way there. These constraints are of capital or of technology. So there are a bunch of different constraints and, you know, constraints will emerge at different points in time. Today, we have a regulatory constraint. Tomorrow, it could be a discom financing constraint. You know, it could be a general overall financing constraint. And then, as I said, there's a connectivity issue. You have to have the grid that can also absorb so much power and so on. We will, I mean, get into detail. I just want to include Mr. Surana also in the initial comments. Mr. Surana, the minister mentioned something, you know, in his initial remarks. He said that because of the disruption that was caused recently in the Middle East because of the security situation there, it has consequences for our energy security. It has consequences for our price stability. So you, as someone who is heading one of the most important organizations in terms of keeping our energy security in mind, how do you see this disruption panning out and what exactly is happening to take care of that? Thank you very much. Or what needs to be done? Okay. I thought the initial narration started with predominantly on the power sector. But the total energy is predominantly, we can say, one is the transportation sector, one is the electric or power generation sector, and there is industrial sector. And while the power sector was predominantly dominated by coal, to some extent, the gas came in. Gas had a problem of the supplies, consistent supplies and enough availability. So coal remained a dominant player. Now, as far as the oil is concerned, you did start with saying that oil is considered dirty, the coal is considered dirty, and then the gas is there. Oil has got its own important in the total energy basket. So as of today, some 56% of the total, 29% of the total energy basket is oil, and around 6% is gas or 3%, 6% is gas. But with all the projection which we see with the most conservative one also, even by 2040 or so, it is going to be around 31%. So oil is going to stay because of the simple availability, adaptability, convenience of use, and to some extent, economics also. Right. As compared to the other form of energies, they have got their own issues, and it will take some time for that to come on the mainstream, and the consistency of supplies on that. And in that respect, the oil supplies, and as the Honorable Minister mentioned, that becomes important. As far as the oil supplies are concerned, there are sources. In fact, once upon a time, there was a unipolar world. The Middle East was the main state of the total supplies, and there was a possibility that the whole narration on the pricing can be commanded by some few group of people. Today, the situation has changed now with the American shell gas coming in, the Russian production increasing, some of the other countries coming into the main state. It has no more remained in unipolar world. And so the capacity of the countries are a select few to dominate the pricing scenario has diminished to that extent. It helps in both ways. But have we taken care of it? Like, does the best use of supply sources? So as far as the country is concerned, the supply sources have been diversified over a period of time. Recently, you might have seen last one year or so, all the companies, whether private or the public sector, has imported oil from US. Right. Recently, some of our companies had the equity participation in Russia. Some of the companies have gone out to have the equity oil and gas in many countries. So country at one hand has taken steps which have diversified the sources of supplies. Right. At the same time, supply side automatically the world narration has changed from few to many. Understandable. So that the diversity of supply side takes care of the energy security part in terms of contingency. But only one caution to that, that that does not mean that the disruption doesn't create the spikes. Right. Because there is a lot of thing which happens in terms of trading and the trading volume is substantially higher compared to the physical volume. Just for the understanding that it is not that the oil which I am buying today is I am contracted today. It is contracted one, one and a half month back. Obviously. But the prices immediately as seen recently in case of Saudi attack also. Because the narration guides the perception and perception guides the prices. And to that extent there are spikes. Right. But on a longer term horizon, there is definitely more mellowed down narrations which guides the pricing now. And that's why it came down also slightly. Right. So I mean actually we can go into arbitrage discussion but make it very technical. So let's not go there. But I'll just club two sub topics and take the discussion forward. One is the economics part of it. I believe of the overall stressed assets in the country the NPA is about 9 to 10 lakh crore rupees. Almost half come from the energy sector. So be it petroleum, gas, coal, essentially thermal but energy sector. And then connected with that is the policy stability and the political commitment that the government has shown in the last five years. Minister mentioned how we have doubled the renewable energy component over the last five years. So taking these two things together, the economics of the sector and the government's commitment that the renewables should increase. Your thoughts, I'll begin with Ms. Jha. Sure. So the moment you have NPAs that means there has been in the past some level of irrational bidding or irrational contracting. And that, give it 10 years, it becomes an NPA. And if banks have gone and funded those projects based on a lack of clarity, say on supply issues or pricing issues, for instance, I think the new story unraveling and probably Sumanta has more to say on this is that the bids that have been received on the solar and the renewable bids, they've been very low. Are they really sustainable? Because they were predicated on the panel prices and panel prices may change because of trade wars. Right. So a lot depends on what have been the assumptions on the bidding. I'll come to that. Mr. Sinha, she mentioned about the irrational past in terms of funding of the sector. You think with this last five years and the kind of cleaning up that the government has done, we are out of it and now the sector looks clean. The books look clean. Of the banks. Of the corporates. No, look, I think that there are quite a few issues that still need to be resolved. And there are various companies in the thermal sector, in the coal sector particularly, that are still under way in the process of restructuring and through the IBC process. As you know, some companies have been taken over by others. Yes. But there are many assets that are still in limbo that have not yet got cleaned up. Right. And I think to that extent banks are still struggling with that exposure to the thermal sector. Right. And so therefore all of that does need to be cleaned up still. If you look at the gas sector, for example, there's almost about 20,000 to 25,000 megawatts of capacity that is still sitting that has not yet got resolved. Right. Now, of course, if gas prices become cheaper, then perhaps maybe there is something to be done there. Right. But there is a fair bit of that resolution that still needs to be done. Now, just coming to the other question, which is a little bit more future looking, which is could this happen in other sectors? For example, renewables as well. Yeah, she mentioned that. I mean, it's not sustainable. Yeah. So that's why I'm just talking about that. I think the issue is not so much the bidding and the tariffs that we have right now. The tariffs have been a reflection of declining costs. And so therefore tariffs are sustainable. I think where you have problems that arise very often. Storage and distribution. No, no, no. It's really in the issue that sometimes policy is not stable. And when policy is not stable, then it results in some of the basic assumptions that you might have made coming undone. And now in the case of renewables at this point in time, there are one or two states that are fundamentally beginning to question the PPAs that they've signed. Now, if those PPAs start- You mean to say the PPFs of the renewable sector are also being questioned? Yeah, yeah. I thought that was a problem only specific to the thermal sector. No, there are one or two states, right? There's actually one state right now that is particularly questioning the PPAs in renewables. Now, that is something, of course, which is going to go through a court process. And I am fairly confident that the courts will uphold the sanctity of PPAs that have been signed. But in the process of doing that, if the state does not pay you, and there's maybe a year or two years during which this resolution happens in which the state doesn't pay you, the banks are not going anywhere. Their loans still have to be serviced. And that then creates stress for the sector. And while this uncertainty carries on, it leads to a question in every investor's mind about how this issue is going to be resolved. And therefore, should we invest further in the sector or not? And people then naturally pull back. And so it's those kinds of policy uncertainty issues that tend to cause more problems in the sector very often than necessarily it is, let's say in this case, the bidding situation. But you are very specific that the policy uncertainty is at the state level or at the level of center? No, I think as far as the center is concerned, as far as the renewable energy is concerned, their policies are very clear and very supportive. And in fact, if you talk to the ministry of the power of renewable energy, they are extremely responsive and the prime minister set a target. And the whole system at the central level is certainly trying to move in that direction to achieve those targets. I think because of our federal polity, ultimately and power being a concurrent subject, it's the states that really have to go ahead and buy this power and the states that have to follow the guidelines at the center sets. And so sometimes when the states do not follow these guidelines and go off on their own tangent, that is when you start having problems. Right. I will delve a little more in detail on this subject. Well, come to it. But I'll take Mr. Surana's comments on the economics and the policy stability part. Of course, the NPA thing does not bother you actually, but given the fact that you come from the public sector. But your understanding of the economics of this transition, energy transition from dirty coal to the renewables. You think it's widely supported and that the system is in place both in the public sector as well as the private sector. So that the crisis of capital that we are facing, for example, in the thermal sector does not get repeated in the renewables to which Mr. Sinha just hinted. So we need to understand it in two contexts. One is the supply side and one is demand side. So demand side is well understood in India that the type of energy demand which we have, especially considering the population and our per capita consumption is so low is going to be huge. And there is no denial of the fact. On the supply side to cater to that, you need all the basket of energy mix to cater to that. There cannot be one solution to that. We can't say that only coal can solve oil can solve gas can solve renewable. You need all to cater to this demand. And to this, we need a coherent transition policy and coexistence policy. Let me put it this way. In this coexistence policy, there will be a graduated path and there will be a calibrated path where each energy basket will join in the total basket. And definitely after the total price, some share will be taken by some form of energy. Now you mentioned that we don't have the power and that is true. Fortunately, we, especially the oil and gas sector, I don't think there have been the defaults on that. But it doesn't mean that because we are a PSU that is a case like that, whether PSU or private sector, the oil industry is operated in a certain manner and there is a structure to that place. And though it may be dominated by the PSUs, but it is not that they do not perform in a normal commercial environment. All the companies are listed companies. So they do perform in that environment. But as the transition goes, it will become important that the new energy sources which are contracted or which are being brought into the system, there should be a model which is sustainable model. Just because the prices are falling and there the people are bidding aggressively, as I've seen in the solar case, and if it is not sustainable at some point of time, the stresses will be shown. Right. The second part of it is the gas, which is one of the element because many of the gas-based power plants did not really ultimately sustain. So there is the issue of the availability of the gas. But with the lot of policies which are taken, and you might have heard this two days back also, that the rates of the prices of the gas was brought down. Yes. There is a lot more LNG terminals coming, a lot more imports are coming. There is a push towards increasing the domestic production of the gas that should help in gas-based power plants to take care of their problem. And I think this transition will ultimately graduate to a situation where we have more structured pattern in handling it so that some of the things which are prematurely done are the aggressively done and which leads to this type of situation. And I'm sure that the banking side also, there will be more diligence to do that. Right. Now, the minister in his address had mentioned something which is of interest to me also. He said, here's the word energy justice. Now, we are the third largest consumer of power. But at the same time, the base is low. We had the average per capita consumption is just about 40% of the global average. So the issue is that we will continue to need more and more power, as you said, within the framework of this coherent coexistence of the sources of power. Now, in that sense, while the government really shows a lot of initiative and clarity in terms of its engagements with the rest of the world, how does corporate sector or the private sector come into play in this on the issue of energy justice? You can take that question. Yeah. And briefly, and then I'll come to sit. So on the energy front, that is one classical example where it is a combination of the government at the highest level, I must say that, along with the corporates who are involved in it, as well as the administration. They are working together to ensure that the energy security of the country is taken care. Many of the things you would have seen that some of the equity oil which the oil companies have taken overseas is a result of a high level of engagement on G2G level, B2B level, and the facilitation of the whole in terms of policies, in terms of procedures, in terms of removing the hurdles which can come in place. And the very fact that that could be achieved is a testimony that the thing has moved in a coherent fashion. That's one part of it. The second part of the purely internal policy guidelines which helps in bringing in the other sources of energy. So you might have heard there was a biofuel policy recently. There was a process for increasing the ethanol blending in this. There is a new guidelines are coming in where the used can be used for making ethanol. The used oil can be used for making biodiesels. New bio refineries are being set up. There is a support which is being given by the government in terms of pricing, in terms of some sort of support in policy guidelines. These are all the narration which helps of newer and newer forms of energy to come in place. Right. Not to say that the older form of energies are not required. Exactly. It is not this versus that. No, I understood. But Mr. Sinha, when we talk of energy justice, we are looking at a situation where coal is going to stay with us for the next two decades, three decades possibly. And in that sense, are we allowed as a nation to choose our pace in the sense that, Mr. mentioned of the COP 21 targets, we have seen how America has gone out of Paris Accord. Everyone is choosing their own pace. Are we allowed to choose our own pace in terms of when we want to phase out coal? No, I think if I go back to my earlier point and give me a couple of minutes to answer this question. So I was saying that we need about 1.2 trillion additional units. Now, in respect of how fast we do renewable energy, and even if we meet the Prime Minister's target of 450 gigawatts, the reality is that will only account for 50% of this increase. Right. The balance 50% will have to come from somewhere. Right. And as you observed rightly, nuclear is not likely to happen. Hydro is not likely to happen. Biofuels is always going to be a small part of the mix. And therefore, the big other thing that is left over is coal. So the reality is we will continue as a country to have more and more coal. Exactly. There is no option for us, right? In fact, yeah. Now, the question is, does this go against the climate change targets that we've said? It does not. Because if you look at the COP targets that we gave, the INDCs that we committed to, we talked about an absolute target for renewable energy, which we will meet. We've talked about energy intensity of per unit of GDP, which we should also most likely end up meeting, even if we use more coal. And we talked about creating carbon sinks through more plantation of forests and so on, which is also something that is independent of the usage of coal. So the government has been very practical and prudent in how they have set the targets. Right. So they've talked about increasing the amount of renewable energy substantially in the grid. From the current 10%, it will go up to about 30 to 35% in the next 10 years. Right. But the balance 50% or a large chunk of it will continue to come from coal. Right. Now, the reality is that India as a country will face the consequences of climate change, perhaps more than a lot of other countries will, because we have a very large vulnerable population. And therefore, having said what I said about development and justice and so on, the reality is that we have to do as much and more as we can to deal with climate change issues. And we need to actually take multilateral leadership in that area, which the prime minister actually is doing in this respect. And so therefore, I think the path that we're following is actually fairly sensible, which is that we're trying to do as much as we can, while at the same time leaving ourselves flexibility to continue to grow through meeting our power demand through whatever sources as required. Right. And at the same time taking leadership on developing renewable energy and pushing the rest of the world to do more. Right. Then actually, then putting less pressure on ourselves in doing that. Right. I would want to go briefly on nuclear, but before that, Gauri, you know, gas, no hydrocarbon, still in terms of pollution parameters is a clean fuel, clean medium for your power needs. You say that from 6 percent, as of now in the energy mix, it can go up to 15 percent over the next decade or so, right? You think that helps us in our climate change parameters in any manner? So I think it improves the climate parameters for sure. And to go from 6 to 15 percent is a significant policy push which is being undertaken, whether it is in the city gas rounds that the Honorable Minister mentioned, or it is in looking at, you know, targets for the city gas distribution if you can just share with the people. So it now, as Honorable Minister mentioned, it covers 400 districts in India, which is, you know, about... That's the target. No, that's the allocation under the new city gas rounds, the last two city gas rounds that have been taken, that takes it up to 400 districts. All right. But it has to be an ecosystem approach in gas because, you know, gas does not have the properties of oil that is easily transportable. So it needs pipelines to be built and needs spur lines to be built. It needs the right pricing support because gas again is not, it does not have the physical properties of oil. So, but what is happening internationally is we are in a age of actually, you know, as our Vice Chairman, Dr. Daniel Lergan says, we are in a sort of a golden age of gas wherein global supplies of gas have really increased. Global supplies of gas because of the shale gas revolution, you have about 1400 TCF available at less than $3 in MMBTU. So the challenge really is that how do you take that $3 in MMBTU and bring it to the customer? How do you make sure that the downstream price buildup is optimized in terms of taxation and tariffs? So that's the part which needs to be still figured out. Fair enough. Now briefly, I'll just go to the nuclear sector. Nuclear sector, you know, within the energy mix, India has about 2 or 3% of energy coming from nuclear. In fact, despite the fact that it's a very clean energy because of the dangers associated, particularly post-Fukushima, I believe, nuclear as a source of energy is going down globally. In fact, Germany, which had about 25% of its energy coming from nuclear, has gone down below 12%, 10%. Japan actually shut down all of its nuclear power. They were getting about 30% from it. You think that for a nation like India, which is going to need so much more power, nuclear power is actually an option which should be looked at a little more seriously and the world community should look at it also a little more seriously in terms of the energy mix? Who would take the question? I mean, I can take it. See, my view on nuclear is that it's expensive. I don't know what the fully costed sort of cost to now of nuclear would be, but it probably would be seven or eight rupees or something in that range per unit. Whereas thermal coal-based power is probably around four to 450. Renewables is sub three rupees. Gas perhaps even would be cheaper at six to seven rupees. In the sub three rupees, are you including the storage and distribution costs for them? No, I'm not including storage and distribution costs. No, I'm not including that. But even if you include those, the cost would be let's say four to five rupees. And so therefore, all of these other sources of power are likely to be cheaper than nuclear. The other issue with nuclear is that you require very large sized investments, maybe five to ten billion dollars. And really no corporate in India at this point has the capability of making those large kinds of investments. It'll have to be the government. And I don't even think the government has the fiscal ability to make such large sized investments. So my feeling is that even though nuclear is clean, it just is very difficult to put up and the costs are certainly going to be higher as well. No, I can get a little provocative on that. So there is your cost, as you say, of renewables, a sub three. Then you have your storage and distribution costs. And then you have subsidies. So if you include all that... No, no, no, but there are no subsidies. I believe there are subsidies. No, no, there are no subsidies at all. I mean the solar sector is running on subsidies. No, no, no. This is an absolute misconception on your part. Let me be absolutely clear about this. There are zero subsidies in solar or in wind at this point in time. Okay. There's a bid. You go and do the bid. Nobody is giving you any incentives of any nature. I thought they were incentives. No, no, no, no, no. This is absolutely incorrect. There are zero subsidies. The only subsidy that you could argue is there is on the distribution side where if we use the ISTS grid, we're not charged the cost for that. If you want to add that, that would be another 50 to 75 per unit. Now there is also intermittency. And if you want to take the intermittency out, that would be probably another, let's say 50 to 75 per cent more. So that's why I said your three rupees might end up being 450 or thereabouts. If you want to fully cost everything. But then on the other hand, on coal-based power, we don't cost the environmental cost of that coal as well. Where you're putting stuff into the atmosphere, health costs, et cetera, et cetera. Right? So therefore you have to do an apples-to-apples comparison. So therefore, coming back to your point, nuclear is certainly more expensive. I would say even gas is cheaper. Even with imported fuel, we have already this 20, 25,000 megawatts. Let's at least get that running. You also have other opportunities. You have offshore wind, for example, where you can do large amounts. You can do 50 to 70,000, 100,000 megawatts of offshore wind, which will also be perhaps cheaper than nuclear. Right. So there are many other options that you have at this point in time. You have floating solar. You can put solar on canals, reservoirs, et cetera, prevent evaporation of water and do large-scale installations without requiring any land. So there's a lot of stuff that you can do in the existing sources of energy, whether it's gas, coal, renewables, without necessarily having to take recourse to nuclear. Right. I'm afraid I have to take some audience questions as well before we wrap up the discussion. So we can actually head straight to a short question answer session. Anyone who wants to take a question with the panel or with the minister perhaps, any questions? Or should I still continue with the discussion? I have one specific issue left actually. I'll continue if someone... Okay, there is a question. Yes, gentleman. So taking on to nuclear, one is, of course, I agree, Mr. Sinha, that the cost part itself is there. Second is the escalation part because it's a very long tenure of projects. And third, that garment, though in terms of defining the tariff, takes into account some kind of ROE 15.5 percent, but the garment is not underwriting or not ensuring that power would be sold. So in those contexts and, of course, related environmental issues, would nuclear be a threat to further matter and overall would that be a policy focus of the garment? We'll take the question. I just want to add to what Mr. Sinha said that actually the energy mix of the country is evolving. So as of today to say that this nuclear is not an option for the country will be incorrect to say that. The policy can be changed if it needs the country. The narration can change. And the cost dynamics itself can change. Some point of time we were not thinking the solar was really a cost-wise viable option, but it is today. Till some time back, we were thinking that oil is dirty, but with BS6 coming in, it is as clean as gas. So the question is that the very premise on which we are changing our energy mix is also going through evolution process. Right now, whether it should be electrical vehicle, whether it should be gas, whether it should be oil, it is not guided by the type of the air pollution it will create. It will all will be equal as far as with the newer form of the fuels which are being put in the system. So in that narration, I do not think that if today's the policy does not provide for something, tomorrow that policy cannot come if it suits the country. So every country need to evolve its energy policy, not by a common basket of it, depending on the country's need, what resources it has, and what is the requirement of the population of the country? Fair enough. I hope you got the answer. There are three more questions, but I will go with the lady there. Yes, ma'am. Megan Fallone, Barefoot College. My question revolves around some of the data that we are getting from rural areas, which we haven't talked about, and the issue of access. We've talked about intermittency. We've talked about the environmental aspect, but we still have a truly significant access problem. And we now know conclusively across 14 states that households at the poorest end of the economic spectrum are spending nearly 32 percent of their earning on poor quality access to basic energy. And I do not see momentum moving in that direction. And when we link that with the piece of data that says the minute we deliver solar in those communities, women's economic generation goes up by 26 percent. I think we are looking at a win-win, and we're still not talking about the access problem. Right. Are you suggesting that nothing is happening on that front, or there is lack of awareness, or are you suggesting that there are certain bottlenecks? I think there's two things. I think there is a lack of concrete awareness of the actual data, the actual economic uplift that is indeed happening. There is also a huge lack, still, of a public recognition of just how significant that problem is beyond the Panchayat level in last mile communities in India. And thus, resources are not attracted to or flowing with the kind of magnitude they need to to that problem. I believe, Mr. Sarana can answer that, but I believe, as the minister had mentioned, the last count, at last month itself, we were saying about eight million new LPG connections. How many of that minister goes to the villages? Almost all goes to the villages. So I believe there is an awareness and there is execution, but the details can come from Mr. Sarana. In fact, the amount of efforts which has been taken in last three years on making the excess of energy to the rural population and the weaker section of the society has never been there in the last 70 years. In last three years, the 80 million LPG connection which has been given under the Pradhan Mantri Ujwala was purely targeted towards the people who did not have access to energy, who are doing the cooking by the cow dung cakes or the wood or something which was not good for the health, as well as they were not exposed to that cleaner energy at all. And the impact of that is being seen. It was one of the biggest moments which at least in the Indian energy sector would have taken for which straightway goes to the last person in the queue. And when on the cooking gas medium, that can happen. The same thing can happen on the other problem of excess of energy, whether it's electricity or something. And there was a big moment for providing the electricity to all the villages. And so I would like to emphasize that the efforts are definitely, definitely target providing the clean excess of energy to an affordable energy to the rural population to the weaker section of the society. And the impact is definitely there. I believe that partly answers your question. I have to take two more questions because I have just five minutes left. Gentlemen, on that side, I think there were two hands raised that side. One, yes, please. Yeah, this is not a question, but this is only a comment that I would like to make. Keep it brief, please. Yeah, it's brief. Only in the discussion you said that in spite of all the oil sector or gas sector, usage of coal and continuance of usage of coal is inevitable for a country like ours for meeting our growth aspirations. So in this forum, it is pertinent to say that while coal usage is inevitable, if you have to meet your INDC commitments at COP21, as Honorable Minister was mentioning, there is a need for cross-industrial segments to look at carbon capture and utilization technologies. Right. Every segment needs to look at these technologies and they need to implement. Maybe we are, our society and our country is not ready for carbon tax as of now, carbon tax system, but should that be implemented, then CCUS technologies need to be perfected and researched. So that's a valid point. In fact, I remember in 2015, more than 15, 17 years back, I was visiting Norway and they had carbon tax. Even then, if you enter Oslo, you had to pay carbon tax if you were moving in your car. Can I just add a comment? Yes, please. So CCUS is one of the definite solutions and in fact, Indian Oil has invested in a company called Lanza Tech, which recently got funded for carbon capture, where basically carbon capture makes it negative carbon emissions. So you take ambient air emissions and then you recycle those emissions. So we talk about single use plastic that is actually doing away with single use carbon. Right. I believe in that there a campaign is going on. In fact, what I can add to what he's saying is that India, we as a nation actually, live perhaps over two centuries at the same time. So while he can talk about carbon tax, but as the minister suggested, that energy justice is an equally important issue to address. Energy poverty is an equally important issue to address. So while you discuss the issues like carbon tax, which is good for COP 21 and UNFCC and United Nations, but at the same time, you have to think as the lady was suggesting about what's happening in the villages. That I'm afraid brings me to the end of the panel discussion. I'll just briefly conclude. I can't take more questions. I can see two, three hands raised. It comes out that there is a fair amount of consciousness at the level of government, at the center, about the issues that are associated with the sector, be it on the side of policy stability, or on the side of take care of the demand and supply, and then we have seen how, so for example, the gas sector, you say that from six it can go up to 15 percent, and there is enabling environment existing, both in the public sector as well as the private sector, to collaborate and make it happen. And Mr. Surana suggested that oil stays as a source with the same proportion perhaps over the next decade or two, and that we have diversified our supplies, and we are not just dependent on one source or one region globally. And then coal stays. I believe all the panelists would agree that for quite some time coal is also going to stay. And within that framework, the push that is coming from the government on the renewable energy sector, Mr. Surana suggested that maybe little more policy stability would help. Am I right, Mr. Surana, in concluding that? At the state level, yes. At the state level. So that brings me to the conclusion of this discussion that we had on re-energizing India. Thank you so much. Thank you.