A study of India's Energy Scenario

India's per capita energy and electricity consumption are less than one tenth of developed countries' per capita consumption. The inequalities in urban vs rural, southern, western and northern region vs eastern and north­eastern region, and higher income vs lower income households are very high. Unfortunately, the regions where large fossil and renewable energy sources are accessible have lesser per capita energy consumption. For sustainable and equitable socio­economic growth such a situation needs to modify. Given the country's over dependence on coal, large scale import of oil and gas, difficulty in meeting the financial burden of import, environmental consequences of large scale energy production, transformation, transportation and use it is not wise to strive to attain the developed country level of energy consumption. To enhance the quality of life of Indian citizens, there is no doubt that per capita energy consumption has to increase. Through judicious approach, upper quality of life can be achieved with reasonable increase in energy consumption. The nation needs to make timely change of our emphasis on non­renewable energy. Such a transformation in strategy calls for a paradigm shift in our development approach, i.e. from a unsustainable progress oriented economic development to an environmental friendly equitable development. Subsequently three most serious environment related problems (Global warming, acid rain and ozone layer depletion) owe their origin to energy, it is in our national and global interest that we decrease 'energy want' without sacrificing the 'energy need' for a decent quality of life. A time bound plan is vital to change to 'renewable energy dominant decentralized system' from the existing 'non­renewable energy focused, fossil fuel centric centralized system'