Renewable Energy policies in India: Need for Awareness Generation

Energy is the prime mover of economic growth, and is vital to sustaining a modern economy and society. Future economic growth significantly depends on the long t erm availability of energy from sources that are af fordable, accessible and secure. Today, India can well be ide ntified as an energy guzzler. The demand for power is growing exponentially and the scope of growth of this secto r is immense. In an effort to meet the demands of a developing nation, the Indian energy sector has witnessed a ra pid growth. Despite impressive growth in the genera tion capacity since independence, India has always experienced shortage in terms of peaking capacity requirement as well as energy. The country lacks sufficient domestic energ y resources, particularly of petroleum and natural gas, and must import much of its growing requirements. Given this scenario, it is of paramount importance that the country develops all possible domestic energy sources. However, India is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels to fulfill most of its energy demands. But continuation of the use of fossil fuels is set to face multiple challe nges: depletion of fossil fuel reserves, global warming and other envi ronmental concerns, geopolitical and military confl icts and of late, continued and significant fuel price rise. Re newable energy is the solution to the growing energ y challenges as they are abundant, inexhaustible and environmentall y friendly. Accelerating the use of renewable energ y is also indispensable if India is to meet its commitments t o reduce its carbon intensity. Given the vast poten tial of renewables in India, all it needs is comprehensive policies to be a global leader in clean and green e nergy. Government needs to work towards improving the adoption of renewable energy at a large scale in the co untry and making the stakeholders aware of its benefits. It h as been seen that there are many programs and polic ies which have been initiated by the Indian government, both at th e National and the State level for promoting renewa ble energy, but the use and production of renewable energy in t he country is still limited. On studying one of the major initiatives of National government, the “Remote Rur al Village Electrification” in Chattisgarh as a cas e, it was found that there was a gap between the policies and the a ctual scenario. The awareness level among the benef iciaries was found to be very low. Thus, there is an urgent need to generate awareness among the stakeholders regar ding the government initiatives, so that renewable energy ca n be tapped to its best possible extent.