India energy month in brief - Union budget takeaways

Report summary

In this update, we analyse the energy implications of Union Budget presented by India's finance minister, Arun Jaitley, on 29 February. The annual budget is the platform where the government announces its key policy directives. Current initiatives such as the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme for household LPG consumers, auctioning of coal licences and increasing renewable capacity targets to 175 GW by 2022 were first proposed in previous years' budget sessions. Compared with the previous two budgets by the BJP government, the 2016-17 budget has noticeably fewer big-ticket announcements. The key focus this year is to achieve fiscal responsibility and channel available funds towards rural development. Most of the announcements related to the energy sector are tweaks to existing policies, That said, a number of the previously announced directives are taking shape in 2016. This report contain our key takeaways from the 2016 Union Budget.