A review of energy conservation initiatives by the Government of India

Energy conservation is the need of the hour. The first oil shock of 1973 shook up the industrialized nations of the world and awakened them from the sleepy complacency of never-ending oil flow. It made them face the stark reality of the uncertainty in oil supply restoration and the fragility of the trade in oil. This was the time when many countries realized the urgent need for energy conservation. Notably, the wave of energy conservation had struck the Indian intelligentia 3 years earlier when a Fuel Policy Committee was set up by the Government of India in 1970, which finally bore fruits three decades hence in the form of enactment of the much awaited Energy Conservation Act, 2001 by the Government of India. This Act made provisions for setting up of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, a body corporate incorporated under the Act, for supervising and monitoring the efforts on energy conservation in India. In this article the stages in the historical development of Energy Conservation in India, the Government initiatives taken in this regard and the reasons for the limited success in implementation of conservation policies in the past have been discussed.