Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Home minister Amit Shah is heading an informal Group of Ministers (GoM) dealing with “overall strategic issues” that have emerged because of the ongoing conflict in West Asia, including fall in supply of cooking gas and LNG, the primary feedstock for urea production.Shah has already held a meeting with other ministers, including fertiliser minister JP Nadda and external affairs minister S Jaishankar, to assess the status of fertiliser and petroleum gas supplies.TOI has learnt another informal GoM, headed by power and urban affairs minister Manohar Lal, has been set up to deal with matters related to energy supply. The group held a meeting Wednesday where issues related to “piped gas supply to homes” were discussed at length. It was attended by food and renewable energy minister Pralhad Joshi, heavy industries minister HD Kumaraswamy and petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri. This is significant since the govt is focussed on shifting more households to PNG use in place of LPG.Chairing the meeting of Cabinet Committee on Security on Saturday, PM Modi had directed that a group of ministers and secretaries be created to work dedicatedly with a whole-of-govt approach. He had also sought sectoral groups to work in consultation with all stakeholders.On Tuesday, Modi announced the setting up of seven empowered groups of secretaries to deal with different issues arising out of the crisis; some of the groups held their first round of meeting on Wednesday. “There will be greater clarity on the course of action in the next couple of days,” said an official.
