Energy, Infrastructure and Resources

The Constitution of India specifies the distribution of executive and legislative powers between the Union and States. ‘Electricity’ is listed in the concurrent list under the Constitution of India and the Central/Union Parliament and state legislatures have concurrent powers to enact laws on this subject. Therefore, both the Union and state legislatures can enact laws on ‘electricity’. However, the laws enacted by the Union Parliament will override the laws enacted by state legislature in the event of inconsistency or conflict.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), on 20 November 2019 gave its approval to the proposed amendment to the to the Toll Operate Transfer (TOT) model of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). After the successful roll out of the TOT model in 2016, CCEA’s recent decision appears to be with a view to increase more participation of institutional investors in national highways sector for raising funds for NHAI.

On 30 August 2018, the Ministry of New and Renewable and Energy, Government of India (MNRE), amended the guidelines for setting up grid connected solar photovoltaic power projects under the viability gap funding scheme of 750 MW under Batch I of Phase II, 2000 MW under Batch III of Phase II, and 5000 MW under Batch IV of Phase II of the National Solar Mission (Amended Guidelines). 

The Union Cabinet on 1 August 2018 approved the policy framework (Policy) for the exploration and exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons.

On 18 July 2018, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved policy framework for streamlining operations of production sharing contracts (PSCs) for increased domestic production of hydrocarbon resources (Policy).