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ET Awards' Agenda for Renewal2011: Energy, the new poverty, saysJamshyd Godrej, Chairman & MD,Godrej & BoyceET Bureau Nov 24, 2011, 06.13am IST

Sustainable Energy Foundation | power

ET invited six stalwarts of India Inc to put together a

ten-point Agenda for Renewal. These are the ninth and

tenth in a series of columns by CEOs, politicians, civil

society leaders and academicians discussing the agenda.

Recently, I received a mail which read: "If things go right, we

will be a middle income country with a multi trillion dollar

economy over a 10-15 year horizon. But things could also

go wrong. There are growing concerns about governance,

or the lack of it, and the future direction of India's economy

andpolity.If there is a prolonged policy paralysis, a great

opportunity could be squandered."

Two lines caught my attention — the one about the possibility of things going wrong and the other about

opportunities being squandered. It set me thinking about the growth narrative in a country like India.

Full coverage on the Agenda for Renewal 2011

Sometimes, we use the term growth as a number and sometimes as an abstraction, but the underlying

implication is always that, if the country grows at a certain rate, at the end there will be a pot of gold for

everyone. I have wondered if it is time to modify this pitch a bit, which is why it was with considerable interest

that I looked at the renewal agenda that my friends and peers had put together at the behest of The

Economic Times.

The list is a good one and shows faith in the philosophy that growth is an enabler of development. But there

is need to broaden that definition a bit. Economic growth can enable development if it is supplemented by

public policies that encourage circulation of wealth, especially into crucial areas such as public healthcare

and education. It would have been good to see more ideas there.

However, what I would have liked to see most is a request to the government for an energy security

road-map. The entire debate around the growth narrative in India is an incomplete one in the absence of an

energy security blueprint. What is growth, inclusive or otherwise, without energy? We live in the times of

depleting resources and climate change; the days of carbon fuelled economy are numbered. We are already

in a crisis situation where, despite whopping spends we are still starving for energy.

The situation is likely to worsen given our knee-jerk reactions to the problem. We need a comprehensive

energy plan to find our way out of our current predicament as also to ensure that we move towards self

reliance by building our own renewable pool of clean energy.

We need to find a way to seamlessly transition from our present business as usual scenario to a clean energy

growth path. Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation — an organisation working exclusively in the space of

clean energy policies in India — on whose board I serve as the Chair, had recently commissioned a study to

find out if and how this was possible.

The study revealed that India could transition to a clean energy growth path by adopting a two-pronged

approach: focus on energy efficiency and simultaneous development of renewable energy, especially wind

and solar. Clubbing energy efficiency with renewable energy will give us the much-needed window to

incubate the renewable energy sector, particularly large solar, without having to increase the price of

electricity.

This is because energy efficiency is a negative cost option that cross-subsidises the higher cost of

renewables. In fact, the study showed that it is possible that by 2022, we can reverse the present power

scenario to have 143 GW to come from wind, 20 GW from the solar mission, 39 GW from a combination of

biomass, cogeneration and small hydro and the shortfall through phased implementation of energy efficiency

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Typically, market-driven growth spawns urbanisation and leads to migration. Urban centres expand into hu-mongous entities that thrive on an unending supply of energy. By 2030, 40% of Indians are expected to live and chase their dreams in urban areas. Cities will become the key to inclusive growth in the country, and will need to create efficient modes of delivering basic services to their citizens.

Are we taking steps to make systemic changes that will make our cities thriving cultural and commercial centres that we want them to be? Our present policies are not geared for this. Some obvious gaps are the lack of incentives for low carbon development, absence of devolution of power at the city and lower levels and the lack of communication components in the policy to increase acceptance of services like Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Non-Motorised Transport (NMT).

Additionally, there is no one comprehensive urban development plan that can start a nationwide surge of urAdditionally, there is no one comprehensive urban development plan that can start a nationwide surge of ur-banisation. In this context, I think, recommending the revamping of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewable Mission is an excellent idea. Given that city-level development depends entirely on a state's po-litical will, a funding window like the JnNURM is an important lever with which to move all Indian cities to-wards a common vision of sustainable urban planning.

I think we can modify the JnNURM funding criteria to incentivise states to create their own state urban transport policies that are aligned to the National Urban Transport Policies. This will mean focussing not just on promoting a shift towards rapid mass transit systems as well as non-motorised transport but also looking at other linked aspects such as walkability, mixed land use, compactness of the city development and infor-mal sector integration.

Policies around these will decrease travel time, costs and emission while increasing productivity and better-ing the city experience. The Energy Conservation Building Codes (ECBC) will become mandatory in 2013.

This Code will play an important role in creating sustainable cities. However, I suspect that the absence of an organised green market will affect the adoption process. The market needs to be developed and it is time to start a conversation with the government on this. Smart carbon policies for people will determine the next phase of growth.