India Energy Week: Rising demand for fossil fuel dominated the talks

The coal entrepreneurs seem to have cottoned on to the fact that there is no doomsday arriving for the sector anytime soon

Green energy was supposed to take centre stage at the India Energy Week, the ministry of petroleum’s flagship programme. Ironically, it was fossil fuels, coal in particular, that hogged the limelight.

The key number there is that India will shoot past 1 billion tonnes of coal production in FY24. This marks an impressive 11.6 per cent annual growth rate over FY23, something the country has never achieved. That serves to emphasise an impressive growth in India’s demand for fossil fuel as was evident in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at the inauguration of the India Energy Week. “Today India’s share