Shri Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy is currently visiting U.S.A. (from 20 to 22April) to participate in the launch of programmes under International Solar Alliance today at the United Nations, New York. The Minister is accompanied by an official delegation which included Secretary, Ministry of New & Renewable Energy and Joint Secretary, Ministry of New & Renewable Energy.
On 21st April, the Minister met with Mr. Stephen Schwarzian, Chairman, CEO & Co-Founder, Blackstone Group over lunch and discussed investment opportunities in India and the transparent policy regime that the Government under Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has ushered in. Shri Goyal also held meetings with Mr. Jack Kutner, CEO Big Belly, Mr. Richard Kauffman, Chairman of Energy and Finance, Office of the Governor of New York, Mr. Saurabh Agarwal of Warburg Pincus and Mr. Alfred Griffin, President of the New York Green Bank. The Minister also addressed a meeting of large number of American investors and developers in the field of Renewable Energy which was jointly organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and US-India Business Council (USIBC) in the evening. Earlier the Minister had held interactions with print and electronic media at the Consulate General of India, New York.
In his forward looking discussions with the business dignitaries, Shri Goyal highlighted the achievements of the Government and said the Government is committed to implement the promises made by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. He briefed about various steps undertaken by the Government to improve energy access, rapid scale up of renewable energy, enhancing grid reliability, integration of renewable in the grid and the massive opportunity presented by the untapped demand in the Indian market. The Minister outlined the steps being taken to improve the contractual/counter-party risk framework which is critical to all investors and about initiatives such as greening the grid, National Solar Mission, LED programme for enhancing energy efficiency. Speaking on Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY), the Minister stressed upon the steps being taken to bring a drastic change in India’s power sector that can take India to double digit growth trajectory in the economy. He also mentioned that India already has surplus power and demand stimulation through UDAY coupled with the growth in the Indian economy will quadruple electricity consumption by 2030.
Shri Goyal also stressed that the Government is taking necessary actions to sustain the current economic growth of India and continue with major initiatives that are taken by the Government to make it more business friendly. He also expressed hope that given the prediction of good monsoon this year, the country may see double digit growth by end of 2016-17 financial year itself. He also highlighted the need of India to have low cost, long tenor finance for his ambitious renewable energy scale of and requested the investors to look at India as an option for investment. He urged investors to take advantage of three Ds – democracy, demography and demand – which India provided.
