India’s energy policy has been focused on universal access, affordability and the security of supply. It has, in the main, achieved these objectives. All villages are electrified; the poorest of the poor receive subsidised fuel, and even though India still imports 85 per cent of its oil and gas, it does not face the supply risk it once did when the preponderant share of its imports was sourced from the volatile Middle East. Today, it has multiple supply options including from the more stable export hubs of the US, Australia, Brazil and in the near future, Guyana.

This relative success has been achieved through a governance structure spearheaded largely by the government. Post Independence, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru entrusted the custodianship of the energy sector to government-owned public sector entities (PSEs). He was sceptical about the motivations of the private sector. Decades on, when it became apparent that PSEs could not, on their own, deliver the expectations of energy policy, the government relaxed their hold and permitted the private sector to invest. As a consequence, today, we have an energy sector that operates along the twin tracks of public and private sector investments and a governance structure that shares responsibility across the central and state governments and multiple government ministries. There is no one executive body responsible for formulating and implementing a national energy policy; no one forum is accountable for building an integrated........

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