3rd Infrastructure Conclave

With immense fervor and enthusiasm, the 3rd Energy Infrastructure Conclave was organised at School of Petroleum Management, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University on 4th October, 2013. It was a delight and honour to have Mr. Arun Kumar Jagatramka, Chairman and Managing Director, Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd. A Chartered Accountant with an all India 1st rank and a gold medallist. Mr. Jagatramka , a visionary of rare distinction was present to grace the occasion, giving valuable insights about  “Emerging Indian Trends and the dire Need for a Paradigm Shift .” Mr Jagatramka began with a brief introduction about the issues and the current energy scenario prevailing in India over the last decade. He emphasized on the fact that what all steps could be taken in order to meet the ever rising demands of energy and to achieve that one need to have a strong Energy Security policy in place, ensuring availability, accessibility and affordability of resources. Despite being the 3rd largest producer of coal , India is among the largest importers of the same which depicts the terrible  situation the country is facing. Exemplifying figures showcase that just within a year from Jan 2012 to Jan 2013 the imports have almost doubled from 7.4MT to 13.9 MT. He further envisaged the students about the widespread geo-political circumstances and oil diplomacy issues which act as major challenges. Another hurdle he talked about was that even after coal block allocation major players still have to pass through the strict regulations of environment clearance and make their way back ; the need of the hour is to resolve the coal mess troubling the corporate and individuals alike. With a motive to run a profitable business and contributing extensively in social responsibilities corporate today require eased government policies and viable regulations which mitigate the resistance put forward by the oil and gas sector.

While  Pankaj Sindwani started the lecture on the note of history about Tata Capital. He revealed the stake of Tata Son in Tata Capital. He even emphasized on Tata Capital being the largest equity firm in India. 

The session chair of the third session Mr. Kamal Dorabawila, principal investment officer, IFC, World Bank group, Sri Lanka delivered the lecture on “multilateral role in developing infrastructure-the IFC example”. Sir began the discussion by talking about financing in infrastructure and how various multinational companies support infrastructure in developing countries.  The World Bank group has 4 major entities with various purposes. IBRD and IDA mainly focus on providing finance to the government of different countries, while IFC and MIGA are related to financing and providing financial products to investors of developing countries.

Mr. Divyesh Desai, regional marketing manager, Shell-Total’s  Hazira LNG Ltd. spoke on “Energy logistics: regal terminals”. He started by asking everyone what does infrastructure mean? He also mentioned “think differently and act differently”. Mr. Desai added that infrastructure as a project is not simple and development of economy is dependent mainly on the development of infrastructure and also mentioned about the public private partnership.

Mr.Mohammad Athar, Manager (Capital Projects & Infrastructure, PriceWaterhouse Coopers) brought upon a different angle of infrastructure from consultancy side. The various HR initiatives taken at PWC were elaborated by the speaker. 

Mr. Manish Seth (Assistant General Manager(Finance)) set in motion the session with his in-depth knowledge on the complete value chain of the E&P sector. The speaker also explained the present natural gas share which is 11% slated to rise to 20% by 2025, its impact on the demand and supply. Functions of two major CGD companies i.e. GSPL and GAIL were elaborated. GSPL is in transmission activities only whereas GAIL is in bundled activity business.