Petroleum & natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan seeks more information on innovative smokeless stove

BENGALURU: Petroleum & natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan has asked officials at his ministry and public sector oil companies to study and report to him on the energy-efficient industrial stove Bengaluru based I-T Joint commissioner-cum-innovator Hari Rao has developed.

The minister phoned Rao after reading a report in ET (December 20) about his work in developing a smokeless industrial stove that promises to save on LPG. Pradhan also invited the food technology expert to Delhi, and share his ideas with the ministry officials. Later, the petroleum minister spoke to ET to say his ministry attached utmost importance to energy conservation initiatives.

“We want to promote technology that saves on energy. I spoke to Hari Rao after reading about his work in ET, and have urged him to scale up his product and bring it into the public domain,” Pradhan said.

“The minister not only called me but sent a team led by Alok Tripathi, director-LPG (GoI) along with LPG heads of BPCL and IOC to Bengaluru on December 20 to take a feedback on our technology,” Rao said.

He has floated a startup called Agnisumukh. Tripathi, during his visit on December 20, told the team that the Union government is very serious about the efficient use of energy resources as that will ease the pressure on oil imports, Rao said. The official is expected to submit his interim report on December 22.