80th Annual General Meeting
February 15-16, 2008

Address by Mr K C Singh, Secretary (ER), Minsitry of External Affairs

Thank you very much. My colleagues from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Sources. If I could, I would have given rest of my time to Mr. Puri. That was really a fascinating exposure. One feels very happy because that is precisely what is required. That is what India is known for; being inventive. I will not really sum up because I think, Dr. Mitra, you have done it very well after every speaker, but very quickly I will tell you what we are doing and where we are coming and what is the multiplier effect that the Ministry of External Affairs can have. Now, we are an interface with outside world. We have embassies. The Minister was very keen. This post was not filled up for a while to have a Secretary, Economic Relations and we are bringing focus on a few new areas; one is we have investment promotion cell. We are going to expand it. We are going to take people from outside because we think with delicensing, decontrol, the destination today is states in India and the states need assistance and we need to know what states want to do. I have already had a meeting with the Resident Commissioners and we propose to expand this consultation with the states so that when the Chief Ministers go out, when they go seeking finance and technology, our embassies are ready for that. They know the competitive advantage of the state. There is no point every state going after everything and then they keep the partners ready who are ready for that kind of investments. Second one is the energy security and we are seeing it in a very broad sense, not just oil and gas, renewable where precisely this kind of things, what comes in, what happens in a country by the Ministry here and by the private sector. But they are emerging standards. In bio fuels, there are emerging standards. We want to be a part of that to see what are those standards. For instance, you can get bio fuels from corn or you can get it from sugarcane; Brazil and US are driving that. But we want to know exactly the direction it is driven holistically. We got Germany suggesting forming a new international agency for renewable energy. There is an international energy agency in Paris but the Germans feel that for renewable energy, there should be a separate agency. That is gain. Work in progress. We will go along with them. We will be helpful wherever that is required because we have industry here. We have to look that they are protected. We have to look that with the new proposal that they come up as they apply in India, they get structured into any emerging international standards that come about and we are not left out. And, of course, in the nuclear side, we play a role. We work very closely with the Department of Atomic Energy because the technology denial regime that has been in play a very much international instrument and as we come out of those denial regime we are able to liberate the resources in India, intellectual capital as well as the collective energy of the people, you need those denial regime to go away, you need access to technology and you need to trigger of more technology creation. I think, that is the challenge because ultimately between environment economy, as it has been put and technology, we cannot keep doing the business the same way because those international standards on environment come in. How do we retain sustainable development and the rate of progress, without hampering that, how to conform with the international standards. I think, that is the multiplier role that we play in the Ministry. So we will develop these cells. We will have them accessible to both, anyone from industry or otherwise the states and then be the interface so that anyone of you who requires any help from us in any part of the world, the embassy should be there, the consulate should be there and they should prepare the ground for you and really give the optimum help that they can.

So I will just conclude with that. It has been inspirational for me.

Thank you very much.