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| Fig. 1: An electrical transmission tower in the rural Indian village of Sakipur. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
India's national energy policy focuses on dealing with the country's growing energy deficit and finding uses for alternative sources of energy, namely nuclear, solar, and wind energy. One of the main goals of India's energy policy is to conserve energy, especially through the provisions of the Energy Conservation Act of 2001, which included stipulations such as regulating large energy consumers, creating the Energy Conservation Building Code to set energy standards for buildings, and creating the Bureau of Energy Efficiency to enforce the provisions of the act. [1]
India is currently the third largest energy consumer in the world, behind China and the United States. [1] Most of India's electricity is generated from fossil fuels, especially in rural areas where the government is actively trying to expand electricity availability. Due to rapid economic expansion and population growth, environmental concerns and energy regulations have become one of the key issues for the Indian government to address in the future. The government is currently working on various methods to balance economic development with environmental conservation, and alternative energy sources are one of the primary solutions that are in development for this problem.
India has been attempting to bring electricity to rural areas for a number of years. In villages such as Sakipur (see Fig. 1) the national government has worked with local councils and state governments to bring electricity to people in the countryside. This is one of the main energy goals of the Indian government. However, India must also balance government energy development with environmental conservation, as the majority of its electricity comes from fossil fuels. [2]
India's energy policy currently focuses on energy conservation while its economic plans are focused on rapid economic development. India must find a balance to accomplish these two goals.
© Nikhil Basutkar. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] "India Energy Outlook," International Energy Agency, 2015.
[2] E. Yep, "India's Widening Energy Deficit," Wall Street Journal, 9 Mar 11.
