The new Minister for non-conventional Energy (MNES) Vilas Babu Rao Muttemwar is a Journalist-turned-politician.

The mandate of the MNES covers the entire renewable energy sector, namely Solar, Wind, Hydro, Biomass, Geothermal and Tidal Energy sources.

Muttemwar is a Congress MP from Nagpur, Maharashtra. He has convended a meeting of state energy ministers has been convened on June 15 in Delhi. There is a proposal to rename the Ministry as the Ministry for Renewable and New Energies.

Government is aiming to tap the vast unused sources of non-conventional energy can provide electricity to about 25,000 villages identified by the Planning Commission. Due to geographical barriers, it is almost impossible to provide electricity to such villages by conventional means by 2012. There were some 80 million village households without electricity per capita electricity consumption remained abysmally low.

In Maharashtra alone, using non-conventional energy the sugar factories production capacity could be increased to 1000 MW from the current 68 MW. Hydel projects of 25 MW which falls under MNES has great potential. Utilisation of non-conventional energy sources is to be taken up with the involvement of Panchayatai Raj.

Also A M Gokhale, Secretary, MNES has convened a meeting next week with Power Secretaries of the states to discuss plans relating to village energy security.

Environmental groups have asked the Ministry to desist from the use, demonstration and utilization of burn technologies for energy recovery from urban, municipal and industrial wastes because it is highly polluting. Also it is violative of Kyoto Protocol, Stockholm Convention, Recommendations of the Global Mercury Assessment Report and is also contrary to the Supreme Court Guidlines. Our waste is not suitable for energy generation as can be witnessed from the Timarpur experiment. The failure of Australian company, Energy Development Limited (EDL)'s endeavour in this direction is also a reminder of the same. The wrong policies pursued in the past stand out as lessons for the new ruling establishment.