India can reduce its pollution by over 40 percent by not using fossil fuels like petrol and diesel, while the country imports crude oil worth Rs 16 lakh crore every year, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said.
“We can reduce pollution by 40 percent by not using fossil fuels like petrol and diesel,” Gadkari said, addressing the Green Urja Conclave organised by the Confederation of Renewable Energy Service Professionals and Industries (CRESPAI) in association with IIT-Delhi, IIT-Ropar, and the University of Delhi here. He said, “We import fossil fuels worth Rs 16 lakh crore every year. It poses a big economic challenge for us. It also causes pollution. Besides, we also import coal worth Rs 12 lakh crore. We need to reduce our new technologies and improvise those also.”
He emphasised the importance of institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) for bringing new technology to promote clean and green energy. He opined that the new technology should be need-based, economically viable, and available.
He highlighted that India is targeting 500 GW of renewable power generation capacity by 2030, that the renewable energy installed capacity is at 172 GW in the country, and that India is in the fourth position in the world in terms of clean energy capacity.
“Our total power basket has a 38 percent share of solar energy”, he pointed out. The cost of solar power came down to Rs 2.60 per unit, while other green energy costs Rs 6.5 per unit, he pointed out.
“State government discoms (utilities that distribute and generate power) have a loss of Rs 16 lakh crore at present. They are following a good policy—more generation, more losses; no generation, no losses,” he said. It is the right approach that they (state utilities) want to reduce their cost by having a higher proportion of solar power in their supplies, he opined.