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Manohar Lal Khattar appointed as power minister; eyes big upgrades

2024-06-12

Former Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar took charge as the Power Minister in the newly formed Modi government. On his first day, he convened a meeting with officials and public sector unit (PSU) chiefs to discuss plans for enhancing the country's power generation, transmission, and battery storage capacities in response to rising power demands.

"The meeting focused on transmission capacity addition, storage capacity addition, and also generation capacity addition. We talked about battery storage, essentially storage capacity," a power ministry official who attended the meeting said.

Khattar, who succeeded Raj Kumar Singh, emphasised the need for substantial capacity enhancements to meet the escalating power demand. The government has ambitious targets to establish an additional 80 GW of coal-fired capacity by 2032 and integrate 500 GW of non-fossil generation capacity by 2030 into the grid. Battery storage will play a critical role in supporting intermittent renewable energy and ensuring grid stability. Last September, the union cabinet approved Rs 37.6 billion in viability gap funding for battery energy storage systems.

A veteran of the BJP, Khattar has embarked on his new role as a parliamentarian and Union minister. He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a permanent member in 1977 and transitioned to the BJP in 1994.