By IANS,
New Delhi : Finding energy policies in India not entirely consistent with present-day needs, Prime Minister Manmohan singh Saturday called for an integrated policy to ensure better coordination towards the larger goal of energy security.
“Currently, policies relating to individual energy sectors are set by a number of different ministries reflecting historical evolution,” the prime minister told a full meeting of the Planning Commission here.
“This means the policies followed in different sectors are not always internally consistent,” he told the meeting, called to review India’s energy sector.
“It is therefore, critical that we evolve an integrated energy policy based on a consistent application of economic principles across different energy sources,” the prime minister added.
Towards this end, he asked Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to constitute an expert committee that will also examine the findings of a similar group under Member-Energy of the plan panel Kirit Parikh.
“Energy is a crucial input in our development and our energy requirement for growth is indeed very large. From all available information, we are also likely to be increasingly import-dependent,” the prime minister said.
“This makes us vulnerable to uncertainty of international prices and also reliability of supplies.”
Accordingly, he said, it was important to undertake optimal exploitation of domestic energy resources with a view to increasing the country’s energy security and explore the scope for acquiring energy assets abroad.