Gas-based economy was a wrong approach, says NITI Aayog member

“So when it came to NITI Aayog, I was the only one who said that it was a wrong approach. Because, India’s resources are not oil and gas. India’s resource is coal. So why are you not exploiting your own coal, rather than importing gas?,” he told the gathering.

Pointing out that investments needed to set up a gas based economy runs into Rs 3 lakh crore in terms of building LNG terminals and gas pipelines, the former director of DRDO said, “A globally networked system can sometime mislead you, if you don’t look at what is valid for your own country. We are a tropical nation. We have plenty of wind and coal. So why don’t we make our energy transition which has a mix of all this.”

Later when asked why he was critical of gas-based economy in his speech, Saraswat told mediapersons, “There was an assumption that gas from KG basin will be affordable. Unfortunately when we went into those projects, we found that those are not affordable. Under the assumption that we will have a huge gas resource in our country, we set up large number of gas-based power plants. What happened to them? Almost 25 Gigawatt (GW) of gas based power generation capacity is lying idle today. Reason is we have to import gas.”

Saraswat said high gas prices can be “blamed” on war between Ukraine and Russia.

“Even earlier, gas prices used to so unaffordable, that our fertiliser plants were not running properly, because they were all gas-based. So when you are dependent on gas supplies from outside, we have coal in the country. If we can convert coal into shale gas through gasification and if we control the pollution through carbon capture utilisation, then we are self-sufficient.”

He said five plants of coal gasification were being built in the country.

When asked what is way forward for states like Gujarat which has built huge infrastructure for gas, Saraswat said, “I am not saying we are going to close down the gas-based infrastructure. We have gas in Assam and in Gujarat and so we should use them. But to say that we will switch over 100 percent to gas economy is wrong. It should have a proper balance and use other sources of energy.”

Saraswat also pointed out that scientists play a minuscule role in policy formation within India.

“Unfortunately there is a trend our country that when the policies are made on any subject, the least contacted people are the scientists. The basic element of science, which is required for the growth of the nation, if it is not factored in, then the policy formed will be unscientific,” he said.