Stichting Laka

Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
The energy scene

Auteur	Adv. Board Government of India
Datum	oktober 1985
Classificatie	4.03.0.00/04 (INDIA - ALGEMEEN)
Voorkant

INTRODUCTION

Frequent power-cuts in almost all parts of the country have brought home to the 
consumers of electricity in the industrial, agricultural and household sectors, the 
harsh realities of the current energy scene. In the countryside, the growing shortage 
of firewood is an equally serious matter, although, by the very nature of things, it 
goes largely unnoticed and unreported.

This state of affairs must cause serious concern because the lack of adequate energy 
spells economic stagnation at a time when we have no option but to develop rapidly, 
if we are to eradicate poverty and survive as a self-respecting nation in the context 
of a still substantial rate of population growth. The tentative projections which have 
been made by this Board of the energy supply and demand situations 20 years from 
now also give no cause for comfort and warn of continuing deficits in the years to 
come. 

A detailed analysis, however, reveals that, difficult enough though the energy 
situation may be, it is by no means hopeless. In the short run, the shortages from 
which we suffer can be largely overcome by improved efficiencies in the generation 
and transmission of power, by greater attention to the production, beneficiation and 
movement of coal and by achieving greater efficiency in the use of various forms of 
energy. In the long run, the situation can be met by making every possible effort to 
discover and develop new sources of coal, oil and natural gas, by harnessing all 
available resources of renewable hydropower and by making the best possible use 
of our vast resources of under-utilised and degraded lands to produce more biomass. 
We must, in addition, go ahead vigorously with our plans for nuclear energy and for 
tapping non-conventional energy sources. And since we may not be able, in spite of 
all our efforts, to discover any large new reserves of oil, we must improve our 
foreign exchange earnings through increased exports so that we may be able to
import all the oil we need for sustained economic development

All this, however, is easier said than done. In the last resort, our success in 
meeting the energy crisis will depend on the extent to which we can prove
ourselves capable of taking and implementing the very many hard decisions
which will be required for carrying out such a programme on a time-bound basis.
And success in this matter will in turn depend largely on the degree of awareness 
which can be created of the price which the country will have to pay if it fails to
meet this challenge.

It is in this background-of the need to create a greater awareness of our energy 
problems-that the present publication has been brought out for circulation among 
a select group of citizens, consisting mainly of policy-makers, opinion-makers, 
government executives, legislators and academicians. Needless to say, the Board 
takes no responsibility for either the views or the news which have been reproduced 
here. The emphasis, wherever it occurs, has, however, been added by us.

B. B. VOHRA
Chairman

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