'Changing current development paradigm solution to India's prosperity'

5th intl meet on Industrial, information systems at NITK

Ensuring such equitable access is the biggest challenge that India faces in every field of development including energy,” said Planning Commission former principal advisor (Power and Energy) Surya Prakash Sethi.

Addressing the gathering at 5th international conference on Industrial and Information Systems-ICIIS-2010 at NITK Surathkal on Friday, he said that there is very high correlation between energy and consumption and the level of well being and development.

“India’s per capita energy consumption is 4 per cent of US, 20 per cent of world average and 28 per cent of China. Even this low level of consumption is unevenly distributed with minimal access to the bottom two third of the population. If the level of social and economic well being of the bottom two third is to be improved, then there is a need to raise their access to modern commercial energy,” Sethi said and added that for India to become a middle income country by 2031-32, it needs to deliver not just growth but inclusive growth of 8 per cent plus that is designed to bring the bottom two third to an acceptable level of well being.

“The Integrated Energy Plan (IEP) projects that, to achieve this India would need to raise primary energy consumption by atleast 4.3 to 5.1 per cent per annum. Commercial energy would need to rise a little faster at 5.2 to 6.1 per cent per annum. This will raise India’s share of global energy consumption from 3.8 per cent to a range of 7.6 per cent to 10.9 per cent,” he said and added that none is going to make it easy for India to raise its share. In fact, to deliver higher share, India would need to tap as much as 13 to 21 per cent of the incremental global fossil fuel supplies till 2031-32 compared to our current share of 3.8 per cent, which is not going to be easy.

Renewable

Going by Renewable, the reference scenario estimates that the installed nuclear capacity in the world by 2031-32 would be 500 GW. For india to deliver 63,000 MW under the reference case, every second MW of nuclear capacity built in the world will have to be in India. Country’s highest office has announced 22000 MW solar target by 2022 against existing grid and off grid capacity of 8 MW. Solar is a byproduct of the semi conductor industry and India has a very limited track record in that field. Import content of our solar manufacturers remains above 80 per cent.

Sethi suggests that a disruptive technology such as an air powered car or a breakthrough in harnessing direct or indirect solar energy and energy storage could change and make all the existing facts and figures fall flat.

“Real answer to India’s prosperity lies in completely changing the current development paradigm which is based on conventional western educated mindset and is unsustainable in the current global and India’s domestic realities which indicate that as many as 550 million Indians live without electricity in the 21st century.

As many as 700 million Indians use some form of biomass as their primary or only energy source for cooking, over 50 per cent of Indian farmers are still rain fed, average land holding of a rural household is 0.73 hectare in 2003. Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Director (Admin and HR) Shivayogi C kalasad was the chief guest of the programme. NITK Director Prof Sandeep Sancheti presided.