06-12-04

The Government and industry should play a pro-active role to find alternate sources of energy to meet the target of providing electricity to all by 2012, experts said. Some 57 % of the rural households in India did not have access to electricity and it would be prudent to use renewable sources like solar, wind and biomass to achieve the target of providing electricity to all by 2012, TERI Executive Director Leena Srivastava, said at the India Economic Summit-BBC World debate on "The Energy Challenge".
"Even though there are more oil and gas reserves in the world now than we had originally thought, we have to move towards a sustainable technology system... from a fossil fuels-based economy to a non-fossil fuels-based one," Shell India Chairman Vikram Mehta, said.

There could not be no one complete solution for meeting the growing energy needs in a big country like India, Tata Sons Resident Director M.A. Pathan said, adding there was a need for joint efforts from the Government and private sector.

Many corporates, including Tata Motors, were already working on plans to use alternate sources like fuel cells and hydrogen for transportation purposes, Pathan said. There was a need of tremendous investment to meet international standards, he said.

Source: The Hindu