By IANS,
Kolkata : Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former human resource development (HRD) minister Murli Manohar Joshi Sunday said the government should form a comprehensive long-term policy on energy.
“India has a big basket of energy. We have great alternative sources to generate wind, hydro and bio-energy in the country. But despite having everything, the government is heavily dependent only on oil,” he said here at a press conference.
Energy is the key to progress for any country and the opportunities to generate alternative power must be explored, he said.
“In India, there’s also a huge scope to explore solar energy,” he said.
The government needs to reduce taxes on petroleum products and a proper taxation policy should be formed, he said.
Countering the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s claim that oil companies are incurring losses, Joshi said three oil companies – Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum (BP) and Hindustan Petroleum (HP) – jointly earned Rs.576.92 billion between April and December last year.
He said India has been a major producer of diesel and natural gas and 90 percent of total gas consumed is produced in India.