It is heartening to note that both the BJP and Congress recognise the importance of clean fuel as the economy’s driving force

Since independence, affordability of energy has been linked to the affordability of votes by different political parties. This approach of providing affordable or sometimes free energy, dominated by fossil fuels, to a more than 300 million poor people, has locked India into a supply mix, responsible for massive import bill and high carbon footprints. In 2011-12, 1.9 per cent of GDP went into fossil fuel subsidies, and almost 10 per cent of GDP at current prices went into importing those fossil fuels in the country. We currently import 31 per cent of our primary energy supply and that might double by 2047 if the current regime is not altered. This will put additional strain on our Forex reserves, resulting in consequences such as inflation, low growth rates and more importantly will make us further vulnerable to geo-political pressure. This is similar to how the US-Iran standoff on nuclear issues in the year 2013 affected our position on oil trade with Iran. 

For this reason, there has been a raging debate on enhancing India's energy security by greater exploitation of domestic fossil fuel resources. The debate is fraught with constitutional, legal as well as governance challenges such as privatisation of PSUs, amendment of the Coal Mines Act of 1967, among others. These reforms have been delayed by a lack of political will among all parties. However, the greater and yet the least talked about challenge among them is that of sustainability.

First, the sufficiency of our domestic fossil fuel reserves to meet our future energy requirement is questionable. Second, coal, oil and gas have high carbon footprints all along their value chain from mining to final combustion. Such rapid and high level of exploitation of coal, oil and gas in the economy is unsustainable.

Clearly, in addition to affordability of energy supply, sustainability must also become a part of the political discourse to realise the ultimate objective of energy security. Thus, it is worthwhile to look at the manifestos of the two major national parties in the backdrop of the 2014 lok Sabha election. The manifestos outline three different approaches to achieving India's energy security.

The BJP's manifesto recognises the role of our international partners in strengthening our energy security. It focuses on improving relations with energy supplier nations and thus diversifying the supplier base to avoid an Iran-US standoff-like situation in the future. It further aims at augmenting our domestic capacities in parallel through a combination of fossil fuels and renewables. Most importantly, it is cognisant of the challenge of climate change and stresses upon building localised institutions and promotion of research and development aimed at supporting mitigation and adaptation strategies.

The Congress's manifesto stresses upon more handouts in the form of subsidised lPG cylinders. It talks about increasing quality of electricity access in rural areas, and enhancing investments in energy efficiency and renewable technologies through missions like Jawaharlal Nehru Solar Mission. It also mentions, “We will continue to strongly advance and protect India's interests in international climate and other environmental negotiations”.

In spite of their being different ideologies towards energy security, both parties recognise the importance of clean technologies, and the fact that climate change mitigation and adaption is the need of the hour, and that steps need to be taken now in order to avoid significant loss of human and economic capital in the country. However, the steps that each party plans to take to achieve that objective will be interesting and evident only once, they are in power. The fact remains that affordability and sustainability are not mutually exclusive factors of energy security, and that an integrated action will be required from the next Government to put India onto a trajectory of achieving energy security.