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Pachauri R K and Bhandari P , 2004
Encyclopedia of Energy 4: 141-157
In India, several committees appointed by the government to review energy policy from time to time have emphasized the need for a nationally coordinated approach to energy policy formulation. As a result, sporadic efforts have been made to bring together various departments or ministries dealing with energy for the purpose of arriving at a unified and integrated approach. However, this has not met with much success and initial efforts have been abandoned in every case. Currently, the National Development Council (NDC) functions as an umbrella organization to approve of each Five-Year Plan as prepared by the Planning Commission. The development of each successive Five-Year Plan involves a significant effort in consultation between the Planning Commission and several ministries; the plan receives the final stamp of approval from the NDC. The aggregation of component plans, however, is not an effective substitute for a properly integrated comprehensive national energy policy. For instance, several countries worldwide have a single energy ministry that serves the requirement of integration; with the tradition established in India, such an arrangement has neither been attempted explicitly nor has it presented great appeal to political decision makers. With rapid growth of the economy and increase in demand for energy, issues of energy security, efficiency of the entire energy system, and the effects of energy production, conversion, and consumption on the environment require policies that optimize some of these variables on an integrated basis, rather than by fuel or by specific source of energy. There is, therefore, a growing imperative for India to articulate a forward-looking integrated energy policy.
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