India must manage energy demand efficiently: Shinde

New Delhi, May 5 (ANI): Union Minister of Power Sushilkumar Shinde has said that demand for energy in India will keep increasing because of accelerated industrialization, urbanization and an growing economy.

Addressing a national seminar organised by FICCI here, Shinde said: " Energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy is essential for decoupling growth in energy demand from economic growth while ensuring that India's energy demands are managed efficiently.

"The need of the hour is to have a more vigorous and focused national awareness campaign to meet the desired objective of reducing the energy intensity of the country," he added.

He further said that the Government of India has put in place an overarching legal, regulatory and policy framework to promote market based energy efficiency in the Indian economy.

He also informed the that the Bachat Lamp Yojana is the world's largest Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project to get approved by the CDM Executive Board of UNFCCC at Bonn, Germany.

According to the scheme, BEE plans to replace 400 million power-consuming incandescent lamps with energy saving CFL bulbs across the country, that will cost the consumers Rs 15 a piece.

The replacement of the ICLs by CFLs would lead to a potential reduction of over 6,000 MW in electricity demand. (ANI)