Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ha said that the country needs to increase its energy consumption in order toe achieve the target of 9 per cent economic growth in the 12th Five-Year Plan, which begins from 2012 to 2017.

“We have set for ourselves an ambitious target of 9 per cent annual growth in GDP in the 12th Five-Year Plan. This high rate of economic growth would require our energy consumption also to increase rapidly,” he said. He was speaking at the National Energy Conservation Day event in Delhi.

The Indian government is planning to achieve 9 per cent annual growth during the five years from 2012 amid uncertainties in the global economy. The government has already decreased the forecast for the current five year plan to 7.5 per cent compared to the earlier prediction of 9 per cent growth.

The Prime Minister said that the country must encourage the use of super-critical and ultra-super critical technologies for generating power to reduce energy intensity. The National Solar Mission has plans to generate about 20,000 MW of solar power by 2020.