Dear Members,

I have great pleasure in extending to you a warm welcome to the Sixth Annual General Meeting of the India Energy Forum. The Report of the Secretary General which is in your hands gives the highlights of the various events and activities undertaken by your Forum. It is a matter of great satisfaction that the range and depth of the themes, the high quality of the speakers and their presentations has been highly appreciated by the participants and the stake holders in the energy sector. The venue of the conferences has not only been New Delhi but has extended to Mumbai and Kolkata. We propose to go to Guwahati in the North East this year. The approach of networking with other industry associations and other organizations of the energy sector have added experience and visibility to our Forum. We also propose to bring out the important recommendations of our conferences to submit to the concerned authorities and the decision makers.

On this occasion, however, I would like to mention a few areas of concern which need attention. The Integrated Energy Policy Report was released by the Planning Commission in August 2006 and it gives a perspective for policies and production of different forms of energy. It makes specific recommendations on all important issues. The Report has been in the public domain for comments and discussion. We had associated with the Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe), a research body in debating the recommendations last year. The Conference was inaugurated by the Prime Minister. The decisions have to be taken by the various wings in the Government and the Government of India has to formally release decisions for implementation. The issue is of importance and needs action so that integrated development of the energy sector takes place.

Another important issue is the institution of Regulation and role of Regulators. With the participation of the private sector in power, petroleum, renewable energy and coal sector and to encourage competition, the regulatory mechanism needs transparency and proper manning. The Regulators should inspire confidence in their appointments and functioning. There are instance of posts lying vacant for considerable time and regulatory boards are not given staff and facilities for their functioning. For the energy sector, the institution has great importance and crucial role and it is in the hands of the government to strengthen it by taking steps which are well within its control.

The Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the recently concluded U N Climate Change Conference at Bali has brought up this issue of green house gas emissions on the top of the agenda of th energy and climate change. We are planning a growth rate of 9% GDP annually for the 11 Plan and thereafter. There is no automatic link between economic growth, energy use and emission. Modest reduction in GHG emission which causes climate change is incredibly costly with the available lower carbon technology. The climate change problem will be eventually solved when costs of renewable energy become competitive with these of fossil fuels technologies. In the short term, the area to be exploited is technology. The scope for emission reduction using both existing technologies and those under development is immense. We had taken initiative in the past in organizing two seminars on Clean Development Mechanism in association with CDG of Germany.

We are also very happy that Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the IPCC headed by Dr R K Pachauri who has been supporting IEF in its programmes. I would like to suggest that in this year we may organize a conference on Climate Change, Technology Development for GHG Emission reduction with the help of concerned institutions. This can be even combined with the issue of development of Nuclear Energy for which we have held open house debates in the last two years. It is interesting also to note that we have 4120 MW nuclear capacity and in the current plan propose to add 3160 MW. China has 8587 MW capacity and 18000 MW is under construction and they have a target of 40,000 MW by 2020.

We have been keen to take up studies, assessments in the key areas of energy sector. Members will be happy to know that Reliance Energy had asked us to give them a Report of Demand and Supply Assessment of Power in Northern and Western Region. The conclusions of the Study are extremely important for key power sector planners and developers. These do not however support the claims of power sector planners of power to all by 2012 and can be usefully extended to the study of other power regions.

The Bimonthly newsletter “TOTAL ENERGY” of the Forum has been very well received and the comments of some of the experts are given in the Secretary General's Report.

On the financial side, we have improved our performance and closed the accounts for 2005-06 with higher surplus and addition to our corpus and reserves.

Before I conclude, I would like to acknowledge the cooperation extended by the Ministry of Power, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Ministry of Coal, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and the Planning Commission. We are also thankful to all the private and public companies in the energy sector, Wind Energy Association, Co-Gen association, diplomats of various countries and all our members.