78th SKOCH Summit – State of Governance

Despite the encouraging growth trajectory in the energy space in the last few years, the Indian power sector has still not been able to induce and sustain the required capacity addition matching the ever-growing power demand of the country. India’s power deficit situation has improved in the last few years. Yet, there are concerns relating to fuel security; financial health of discoms; under-procurement of power by states; and, financing and project appraisal, amongst others. Covid pandemic has only aggravated the challenges. In the last few years, several measures have been undertaken as proposed by the Electricity Amendment Bill 2014 and more recently the UDAY scheme to address financial issues faced by discoms.

India is fast moving to adopt EV technology. Each of the transport corporation and Smart City is either running of planning pilots on EVs. The fact remains that this is expensive and we are yet to develop the infrastructure for charging and maintenance etc. Financial stability of the transport undertakings is already a big question.

The panel discusses the following:

1. How to balance regulatory intervention/hurdles, increase financing facilities?
2. How to increase financing options and increase operational efficiencies.
3. How can emerging technologies help, in case energy sector – renewables and in case of transport – EV?
4. How to improve the health of the sector?

Development related issues are barrier to economic growth and welfare and prosperity of citizens. It provides us with challenges to overcome and opportunities to capitalise on. Working together makes a real difference to the lives of people, particularly at the grassroots. More than access to credit, creating a capacity to absorb the credit becomes important. This is also coupled with appropriate technology, education, health, housing, gender and employment. Not only the government, the private sector and civil society also has a role to play. The road to success therefore lies in keeping people out of poverty once out it, creation of inclusive societies, crisis prevention and gender empowerment across sectors. The panel discusses the following:

1. How to improve the social and economic status of communities?
2. What are the challenges?
3. How to leverage PPP?
4. How can technology help reach out to people as well as assimilating citizen in the government-citizen dialogue?