A two-day conference of Ministers for Power , New & Renewable Energy & Mines of States & Union Territories will be held on 7th& 8thof October in Vadodara, Gujarat. The Conference will be inaugurated by Shri Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy and Mines. The aim of this two-day conference is to review the implementation of various ongoing Schemes/ Programmes & deliberate on a host of issues pertaining to Power, Coal, Renewable Energy and Mines sectors.The conference will be organized on the sidelines of the International Energy Conference-SWITCH Global Expo organized by Government of Gujarat from 06th to 10th October, 2016 at Vadodara.
Ministers and Secretaries of the States and Union territories and senior officials of the four sectors and Public Sector Undertakings under them will meet up to discuss issues like implementation of Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY), 24×7 Power for All, Feeder monitoring, IT enablement of urban & rural feeders, Rural Electrification Programme, Energy conservation , Right of Way (RoW) compensation for transmission lines in urban areas, National Power Demand & National Electricity Plan, issues related to open access &captive generation, energy/peak shortage and increase in transparency by introduction of Mobile Apps.
Apart from above aspects, mandatory adoption of Energy Conservation Building Codes by States and Agricultural Demand side management will be discussed. Discussion will also be held on policy interventions for Hydro Development, including small hydro under the broad aspects of progressive Hydropower Policy.In the area of Renewable Energy, State wise review will be taken on issues regarding Solar Power, Wind Power as well as the compliance of Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPOs) and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs).In the Coal sector, deliberations will focus upon issues like Import Substitution of coal, Third Party Sampling and flexibility in utilization of coal among other outstanding issues of coal companies.
In the Mining sector, deliberations will concentrate upon important issues such as preparedness for e-auctions of major mineral blocks, setting up of District Mineral Funds (DMF) in the States, exploration policy & minor mineral rules, Star rating of Mines and curbing of illegal mining through Mining Surveillance System (MSS), among others.The concluding session of the conference would consist of comments and feedback by States/UTs and adoption of Conference Resolution by the delegates.
