PM calls for debate on energy policies

According to the PM, long-term costs of short-term benefits and issues around future energy security need to be examined, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 8, 2008, 24:15:38 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday sought a national debate on energy pricing policies to examine whether over use of resources through misdirected subsidies was leading to environmental degradation. He also said long-term costs of short-term benefits and issues around future energy security need to be examined.

The prime minister's statement comes in wake of the government once again deferring an increase of fuel prices amid environmentalists insisting that low fuel prices were promoting the greater use of personal transport causing more air pollution. Huge government subsidies are required to keep prices of fuel and energy low.

Singh, who was speaking at the inaugural function of Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, also called for a “fair, equitable and transparent” global regime for technology transfer in the interest of people living in developing countries. “We in the developing world desperately need access to environment- friendly technologies, especially in energy, transportation, manufacturing and agriculture,” he said.

The prime minister also announced a roadmap for climate change mitigation and adoption. He announced the setting up of a venture capital fund to promote green technologies with help from the private sector.

He also said that the National Plan of Action on Climate Change would be ready by June this year. “Even as we engage internationally in creating a global strategy to address climate change, we would in parallel work on local, sub-national and national action to meet the challenges of climate change,” he said. Singh identified climate change as a global problem that needs a joint effort.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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