Pib

Pib

1. Address by the Hon’ble President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind On the occasion of inauguration of The India Water Week-2017

In India, 54 per cent of people are dependent on farming for their livelihood. Yet, their share of national income is only 14 per cent. To make agriculture more remunerative and to improve the prosperity of farming communities, the government has introduced many new projects. These include:

1. ‘Har Khet ko Paani’– Water for Every Farm: This requires enhancing the supply and availability of water
2. ‘Per Drop, More Crop’: This requires using drip irrigation and related methods to improve farm productivity, while using the same volume of water
3. ‘Doubling Farm Incomes by 2022’: To achieve this, the government is rapidly expanding the area under irrigation, and completing 99 long-pending irrigation projects. Sixty per cent of these projects are in drought-prone areas
80 per cent of water in India is used by agriculture and only 15 per cent by industry. In the coming years, this ratio will change.

2. Indian Railways and German Railways sign Joint Declaration

A Joint Declaration of Intent was signed between Ministry of Railways and Germany on 10th October,2017 in Rail Bhavan in the presence of Shri Ashwani Lohani, Chairman, Railway Board regarding carrying out of feasibility study on existing Chennai-Kazipet corridor of Indian Railways by German Railways for increasing the speed of passenger trains to 200 kmph on 50.50 percent cost sharing basis.

3. India is looking for new business models to diversify its electricity generation by combining gas and renewables and energy storage: Shri Dharmendra Pradhan

Energy is at the center of our government‘s development strategy. I would like to cite two examples here. First, we are focusing on increasing access to clean cooking fuel through the PM Ujjwala Yojana. In the last 15 months, we have already provided LPG connections to over 30 million households. Secondly, we have set the target to electrify 40 million un-electrified households in the next 15 months. This clearly indicates the energy focus of the Government and also the appetite of the Indian energy market.

Minister said," IHS Markit has coined the term “Super Basins” for 25 basins around the world that have at least 5 billion barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable resources remaining. I challenge the industry today to put one of our basins in the North East on that Super Basin list: Cambay, perhaps, or the KG Basin. If the Permian Basin, after being considered too mature for new oil in the year 2000, could have its spectacular resurgence by 2010 to new technology and new entrepreneurial players, what can this industry do to create the Indian Permian, the Indian Super Basin? If the US can become an oil exporter again on the back of the shale revolution, what is stopping the Indian industry doing the same? This is my challenge to you as an industry! "