Newly-appointed Minister of State for Power K C Venugopal is beginning a new innings in his political career at a time when the power ministry is being criticised for missing targets in generation and setting up of dedicated transmission and distribution backbone across the country.
Elected to Kerala Legislative Assembly three times consecutively (1996, 2001 and 2006) from Alappuzha constituency, 47-year-old Venugopal is known for efficiently implementing projects in Kerala where he served as the minister for Tourism, Devaswom and Culture in 2004-06. In his first interview after taking charge, Venugopal tells P B Jayakumar how he can improve the power situation the country. Edited excerpts:
You assume office at a time when the Ministry of Power is facing criticism for missing targets in power generation. What are your plans to improve the situation?
To tell you frankly, the power sector and its policy related issues are new to me. But I am fortunate to work under a very senior leader and able administrator, Union Minister for Power Sushil Kumar Shinde, who is heading the Union Power ministry for the past many years. As the Minister of State, my job is to assist him in achieving the goals set by the Ministry and implement the policies being pursued by the Government. Under his guidance, I am confident of contributing much for improving the power scenario in the country.
Industry and public have concerns related to lack of pace in reforms in power sector, especially in generation and distribution segments. Your comments...
Generation capacity addition and setting up of transmission and distribution lines are happening at a very fast pace, which never happened in the past at this speed in this country. I have to study the sector in detail to know the issues and will discuss them with my senior Minister and officials. Today I had a discussion with senior officials in the Ministry on such issues. Based on the feedback I got from Shindeji and senior officials in my ministry, we are sure to cross 62,000 plus megawatt of power generation during the current five year plan. This kind of capacity addition was never achieved in the previous five-year plan periods.
What are the issues you think that requires immediate attention in the power sector?
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I understand that there are delays in some of the projects due to issues like land availability, equipment delay and other issues, even though we have a dedicated and effective mechanism to monitor the progress of projects. Now industry is also facing issues such as availability of coal. My efforts will be to address all such issues and implement the reforms under the guidance of my senior Minister.
How do you view your induction to the Ministry? Senior leaders from Kerala like Union Defence Minister A K Antony had commented your induction as MoS is the result of you hard work in the past....
I am grateful to all for this. Yesterday I met UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Both of them advised me to 'work hard'. I am grateful to them and all others for the faith they showed in me and will work my level best to what small contribution I can do to the betterment of people of this country. It will be very satisfying if I can contribute a bit in providing light to millions of people in this country, especially in rural villages.