It however felt that in view of the recent nuclear emergency in Japan, the credible risks to dense population should be taken into account, and all the proposals for nuclear power plants and associated nuclear installations should be dropped. It also stressed the need for reviewing the safety of even the existing nuclear power plants to determine the early time line to mothball them.
It observed that the past practice of blindly increasing the installed capacity of conventional sources will not be in the interest of the society.
As a part of the civil society initiative to find a lasting solution to the chronic energy situation a National Conclave on Energy and Climate Change was organized by Focus Orissa here recently.
Civil society groups and individuals from different parts of the country working on related issues such as displacement, denial 
of access to natural resources, reduced agricultural outputs, environmental degradation etc. came together and deliberated on the way forward.
They felt that the measures such as efficiency improvement, energy conservation and demand side management can provide virtual additional capacity of considerable proportion, which by themselves alone will be able to eliminate the crippling power cuts, and can also meet substantial portion of the additional demand for next 5-10 years.
They observed that India being a tropical country has huge potential in renewable energy sources, which have much less impact on the environment, and are sustainable and people centric. “The energy demand of the rural India should be addressed on a priority basis by deploying such energy sources in decentralized mode”.
A steering committee has been formed to do all that is possible to come up with a credible energy policy which is people centric, equitable and environmentally sustainable.
The major emphasis for this steering committee would be to effectively consult as many civil society groups as possible to ensure that all the major issues of concern to our society are truly addressed.
Five working groups to focus on specific areas also were formed. Those who were elected as Steering committee members are Shankar Sharma, Karnataka as Convenor, Ms.Preethi Herman,Bengalure, Sudarshan Chhotoray, Odisha, Madhdhuresh Kumar, Delhi, Walter Mendoza, Maharastra and Chaitany, Hydrabad as Co-Convenors.
“The projected demand of electricity by the successive governments has been vastly exaggerated because of which large number of additional power plants such as coal based, dam based and nuclear power projects are falsely being portrayed as essential; hence the necessary course corrections should be applied to determine the realistic demand for electricity by taking into account all the factors affecting the electricity demand in a transparent manner, and also considering the nature’s limit to support such a demand”, the conclave underlined.
The large number of additional coal power plants totaling about 58,000 MW being proposed in Orissa, were a major concern for the participants, who considered them as having huge implications to the society.
The conclave was planned in Bhubaneshwar specifically to focus on the deleterious implications of such ill-conceived power projects to Orissa.
The guests who spoke on various sessions were Jagadananda,State Information Commissioner,Soumya Ranjan Patnaik Editor,Sambad,Aurobindo Behera,Secretary, Forest &Environmnet,Pradeep Kumar Jena,Commissioner cum Secretary Energy and IT,Alikishor Patnaik,CPI(M) state secretariat member and Souparno Satpathy etc.
Prominet among the participants were Sripad Dharmadhikari,Madhya Pradesh,Sagardhara,Andhra Pradesh,Bharta Jhunjulwala of Uttarakhand,Walter Mendoza of Maharastra,Preethi Herman of Greenpeace,Madhuresh Kumar of National Alliance of People’s Movement,Chaitany Kumar,Indian Youth Climate Campaign,Sudhir of Kerala and few International speakers also spoke and presented their experiences with people’s movements apart from 100 other delegates.
A dedicated session to discuss these issues w.r.t Orissa was held on 27 March in which the Secretary, energy dept. of Orissa, Mr.Pradeep Jena was one of the chief guests. Whereas many project affected people expressed their concern and anger at the large number of MoUs signed for additional coal power plants without taking the concerned sections of the population into confidence, searching questions were posed by the participants to the Secretary, energy dept. of Orissa on the Orissa power scenario itself.
Energy Secretary admitted that there is a scope to considerably reduce the huge losses prevailing in the sector, with definitive and considerable economic implications.
He was of the opinion that the large number of coal power projects proposed in Orissa, while not essential to meet the local electricity demand, are forced on Orissa due to incorrect policies of the central ministries. But he could not explain as to what is preventing the Orissa govt. to say NO to unscientific and unsustainable exploitation of Orissa’s coal reserve.
He claimed that many initiatives have been launched to reduce the losses, and the substantial amounts of expenditure planned to reduce T&D losses was due to reluctance of the ESCOMs to invest suitably.