New Delhi [India], Sep 27 (ANI): Union Minister for Railways and Coal Piyush Goyal said that reduction of dependence on fossil fuel will continue to be one of the key areas of focus for the government.

"The government has made a conscious effort to bring down consumption of fossil fuel to see where we can replace fossil fuel with cleaner fuel. One example is the thrust we are giving to renewable energy. In solar energy, our quantum leap from about 2.5 Gigawatt in 2014-2015 to nearly 100 Gigawatt that we are planning by 2022, in a short span of 7 years, at prices which are actually giving us huge benefit economically. The price of solar power in India is lower than fossil-based energy or fuel based power. We have made significant progress in this area," he said at the World Energy Policy Summit on Wednesday.

Addressing the challenges that the world is facing in terms of energy production, Goyal said, "The world is conscious about challenges that lie before the energy sector, we got into a laxity over the last three or four years. We forgot what happened from 2011 - 2014, particularly in terms of energy prices. But a good wake up call for the country is to reassess our own energy mix to look at how we can improve our own production and dependence on indigenous output, and to couple the energy objectives we have set for ourselves."

The Minister also said that India stands committed to its climate objectives, and will make efforts to move to alternate sources of energy which will reduce its dependence on oil and oil-related products.

"Being an import-dependent economy from the perspective of oil and natural gas, it's important for us to access how we will increase production, particularly of natural gas, reduce the demand for oil and oil-related products so that we could move to alternate source of energy and address the challenges of climate change," he said.

Goyal continued, "Despite some countries not participating in the global effort to face these issues, India stands committed to our climate objectives to our objectives to reduce carbon emissions. We stand committed to a cleaner and green planet, going forward." (ANI)

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