• Energy has been the driving force behind the process of economic development over the two decades.
• Greater access to energy has fostered economic growth as well as other indicators of human development.
• In India’s context, India has a per-capita energy consumption of only about one-third of the global average.
• Access to energy is important not just in its own right but also due to its linkages with other social indicators.
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) No.7 on Affordable and Clean Energy is closely related to all other SDGs. It has strong relationship with ‘Human Development Index (HDI)’ also.
• A country with 100 Gigajoules of per capita energy consumption has HDI of around 0.8 which is considered to be very high human development.
• India needs to quadruple its per-capita energy consumption to meet the rising aspirations of its citizens.
• India’s energy needs have been complemented by efforts to use energy efficiently in the last three decades.

• Energy-intensive industrial growth is essential for India to reach the standards of living reached by the developed countries. Even upper-middle-income countries have also seen per capita energy consumption rise with their rise in per capita incomes.
• India accounts for around 18% of world’s population but it uses only around 6% of the world’s primary energy.
• India’s per capita energy consumption equals 0.6 tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) as compared to the global per capita average of 1.8 toe.
• In the medium term, for India to achieve per capita GDP comparable to that of the upper-middle income countries, India require greater energy resources at a rapidly increasing rate.
• Energy intensity of India’s GDP has been declining in the recent past due to increase in the efficiency of energy use. However, India cannot become an upper-middle-income country without,

• Rapidly raising its share of the global energy consumption commensurate with its share of the global population
• Ensuring universal access to adequate modern commercial energy at affordable prices.

It is also important to note that India’s energy intensity of GDP started declining at a much lower level of per capita GDP as compared to the developed world. India need to increase its per capita consumption from the current 24 Gigajoules by 2.5 times to increase its real per capita GDP by US$ 5000 in 2010 prices to become upper-middle income country. This will require huge energy resources that would also need to increase with time.

• In India, Access to clean fuel is unevenly distributed not only in rural and urban areas but also across income groups.
• There is a wide variation in the energy access between the households at various economic strata or levels.
• National Sample Survey data 2011-12 shows that around 81% of rural households and 59% of urban households in lowest five percentile classes of expenditure reported firewood & chips as their primary source of energy for cooking.
• Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) as a cooking fuel has increased over the years in urban areas. In rural areas, this proportion is comparatively low.
• Even at the TOP five percentile classes in the rural areas, only around 50% of these households reported LPG as their primary energy source for cooking.
• This indicated that the problem of energy poverty has been more pervasive than income poverty.

• India’s primary energy intensity of GDP has fallen from 0.0004 toe in 1990 to 0.0002 toe in 2017.

• Energy intensity is a measure of the energy inefficiency of an economy. It is calculated as units of energy per unit of GDP. High energy intensities indicate a high price or cost of converting energy into GDP.

• This decline in primary energy intensity is a result of various energy efficiency measures that the country has implemented over the years. Ex- Standards & Labelling Programme, Perform Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme, etc.
• Energy Efficiency broadly means using lesser amount of energy to produce a given amount of output.

• The programmes has led to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and cost savings exceptionally.
• According to a BEE study, overall this saving has resulted in total cost savings worth `53,000 crore (approximately) in 2017- 18 and contributed in reducing 108.28 Million Tonnes of CO2 emission.
• The contribution is largely from three major programmes – PAT, UJALA and Standard & Labelling.
• Overall electricity savings due to adoption of the energy efficiency measures is estimated at 7.21% of the net electricity consumption in 2017-18.