The nuclear deal may have been temporarily hijacked by his Left allies but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today cleared a slew of measures to promote the use of renewable energy forms that includes the launch a nationwide “solar lantern mission”. These would serve the twin objectives of decreasing the country’s reliance on expensive fossil fuels as well as put a stamp on India’s initiative towards tackling climate change.

In this regard, the PM also gave a go-ahead to the Ministry of New and Renewable energy to draft “an umbrella legislation for promotion and growth of the RE (renewable energy) sector” as well as come out with a scheme that mandates state power utilities to draw a certain minimum quantum of power based on renewable energy sources.

At a meeting of the Energy Coordination Committee (ECC), chaired by the PM today, it was decided that the government would soon launch a “solar lantern mission” across the country that would replace the traditional lanterns that use subsidized kerosene.

The meeting was attended by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, National Security Adviser MK Narayanan, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar and Atomic Energy Secretary Anil Kakodkar. It was decided that it was vitally important to replace kerosene lanterns with solar ones “both on account of India’s import dependence on crude oil, the fiscal subsidy for kerosene and the environmental benefits of solar energy over kerosene”.

With renewables still a small portion of the country’s power capacity, it was also decided to come out with a different law to promote this sector as the existing electricity law only pays lip service on the renewable energy front.

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