Dharmendra Pradhan

Dharmendra Pradhan has been the longest serving Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas in the history of independent India. Joining as the Minister of State (In-charge) in 2014, he was later promoted to the Cabinet rank in 2017. On 31 May 2019, Shri Pradhan began his second consecutive tenure at the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Government of India.

Popularly called the "Ujjwala Man",[2] Pradhan is credited with the success of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana  launched by the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas under which over 8 million LPG connections have been provided to women from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families over the past 6 years.Ujjwala Yojana has been hailed as the vehicle for driving women empowerment and social change.International Energy Agency termed Ujjwala Yojana as a "game-changer in ending energy poverty".[3] IIM Ahmedabad published a working paper on "Lighting up Lives through Cooking Gas and transforming society".[4] PM Ujjwala Yojana, among other initiatives is also considered as one of the key factors behind the re-election of the Modi Government in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Pradhan has led to some key decisions in the hydrocarbon sector. Pradhan, supported by the Union Cabinet, has brought in a new Hydrocarbon Exploration & Licensing Policy, which through its uniform licensing for explorations and production of all forms of hydrocarbon, open acreage policy and marketing and pricing freedom will enhance domestic oil & gas production with substantial investment in the sector in India and generate sizable employment. He also led consumer initiatives like PAHAL which is the world’s largest Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme and the Give It Up campaign, that was liberally supported by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, aimed at encouraging affluent citizens to surrender their LPG subsidy for the needy receiving a successful response of 10 million consumers.

Dharmendra Pradhan, as the Petroleum Minister has been driving India's energy transition balancing India's energy demand and India's commitment to climate change mitigation efforts. He has provided to leadership to efforts around making India, a gas-based economy. With around $60 Billion investments lined up in India's gas infrastructure,[5] Pradhan has been working to expand the city gas distribution network and piped gas network in the country.[6] He has underlined that India is going to chart its own path of energy transition which will balance India's energy demand and decarbonisation efforts.[7]

In a brief tenure as the Minister of Steel, Dharmendra Pradhan has been working on to facilitate augmentation of production capacity, ensure growth of secondary steel sector, jobs creation, ensures value addition and import substitution. With particular focus on enhancing steel usage in India, he launched Ispati Irada, a collaborative campaign to involve all stakeholders in this drive.[8] He also launched Mission Purvodaya in steel sector to drive transformation of eastern India through the growth of steel industry which has majority presence in eastern India.[9]

As Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Pradhan launched many key initiatives focussing on reskilling and upskilling the manpower of India and focusing on bridging the skill gap for the Indian youth.  During his tenure, the total number of Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) increased by over 40% and student enrolment increased by over 28% till 2019.[10] He brought in new paradigms in the regulatory environment by mooting National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET) as new unified national regulator to improve quality assurance across entire skills ecosystem of the country. He forged partnerships with leading industry players like SAP, IBM, Adobe etc. to introduce new age skills related to Industry 4.0.[11][12] He also launched one of the world's largest counselling program named Skill Saathi.[13]

In May 2019, Pradhan continued his Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and got the Ministry of Steel.[14]