Government Mulls On Merging Power And Renewable Ministries To Form A Single Energy Ministry

The Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power and New and Renewable Energy, RK Singh on Sunday (2 June) made public the information that a suggestion to merge the two ministries under his control has been received and is being deliberated upon, reports Hindu BusinessLine.

Minister, however, underscored that not enough deliberations have been held in this regard for it to become a proposal within the government.

“Certain suggestions have been made that the two (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Ministry of Power) should actually be one ministry as is there in most countries. (The idea is) to have one ministry which looks at all energy. So we are examining that, but it hasn’t taken the form of a proposal as yet,” Singh said after taking charge.

According to the report, the idea was also taken up for discussion during the recently held 'Chintan Baithak' (brainstorming session) in which government officials and stakeholders from the renewable energy sector came together.

It has been stressed that the merger of two ministries would aid balance of power and common transmission infrastructure needs which the renewable energy and conventional energy share, given the consumer cannot decipher what kind of electrical energy is being provided to them by the Power Distribution Company (Discom).