Need policies to promote green hydrogen and reduce oil and gas imports: Assocham

After two years of the pandemic, the Ukraine-Russia war has added further uncertainty for the global economy. Sanctions against Russia, have triggered high crude oil prices and disruptions in supply chains. Commodity price inflation is adding to the woes of manufacturers and there are questions of energy security as well.

CNBC-TV18’s Parikshit Luthra spoke to Chairman and MD of Renew Power Sumant Sinha who has taken over as the president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

Talking about key ask from government on energy security Sinha said, “We have come up with the policy on the supply side on how to make the green hydrogen cheaper, now we need policies to come out on how to create the demand for the green hydrogen and force the consumers of of grey hydrogen to shift to green hydrogen. I think once that comes in, then you can start seeing the dependence on LNG also go down.”

He added, ‘I think by 2030, India will be well on its way to getting much further down the path of energy security and bringing down costs at the same time. I think that is really a very strong positive for the Indian economy. The faster we can move in that direction, the faster we can decrease our dependence on fossil fuel imports.”

On ease of doing business Sinha said, “On the ease of doing business, clearly the government has made a lot of progress, our rank has gone up from 148, to somewhere around the 60s and now the government has to put in place plans to get it up to the top 20 or 30. I think for that a couple of things perhaps are important. We need a more stable tax environment, perhaps, of course, the government has reduced corporate taxes quite substantially. But on the GST front, also, we need to make sure that we have stability, and perhaps a single major rate would be a good direction to go in.”