The country inherited a stagnant agriculture at the time of Independence. The traditional tools and implements relied mostly on human and animal power and used a negligible amount of commercial energy. However, successive governments realized the importance of agriculture and initiatives were taken for the growth of this sector. Increased investment in irrigation infrastructure, expansion of credit, marketing, and processing facilities (http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/10th/volume2/v2_ch5_1.pdf), therefore, led to a significant increase in the use of modern inputs.

Till the 1950s, use of tractors for agriculture was very limited. Tractor manufacturing in India started in 1961 with aggregate capacity to manufacture 11 000 tractors. Joint efforts made by the government and private sector have led to steady increase in the level of mechanization over the years.

Given that rains are not always timely and evenly distributed, farmers prefer pump sets as a more reliable and assured source of irrigation; as a result, energization of pump sets have been increasing rapidly. As on 31 March 2004, 14.1 million pump sets had been energized. Maharashtra has the maximum number of energized pump sets (2.4 million), followed by Andhra Pradesh (2.3 million). Earlier, the average capacity of the pump sets was 3.68 kW and a pump set on an average consumed 6004 kWh of electricity in that year (Central Electricity Authority,2005). However, owing to insufficient electricity supplies, some farmers have also procured diesel pump sets as a standby. In the recent past, concerted efforts of the government has led to an introduction of biomass and solar photovoltaic based pumping systems

As a result of increased mechanization in agriculture, crop production and rural agro processing emerged as one of the major consumers of commercial energy. The share of mechanical and electrical power in agriculture increased from 40% in 1971/72 to 84% in 2003/04. The availability of farm power per unit area (kW/ha) has been considered as one of the parameters of expressing the level of mechanization. Power availability for carrying out various agricultural operations has increased from 0.3 kW/ha in 1971/72 to the tune of 1.4 kW/ha in 2003/04 (http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2004-05/chapt2005/chap814.pdf).

Connected load in the agriculture sector in 2004 was estimated to be 51.84 GW, the number of consumers being 12.8 million. The electricity consumption in agriculture during 2003/04 was 87 089 GWh (second highest)?24.13% of the total electricity consumption. There was an increase of 3.08% in the electricity sales to the agriculture sector in 2003/04 over 2002/03 (CEA 2005). Electricity consumption in agriculture sector has been increasing mainly because of greater irrigation demand for new crop varieties and subsidized electricity to this sector. Moreover, due importance is not given to proper selection, installation, operation, and maintenance of pumping sets, as a result of which they do not operate at the desired level of efficiency, leading to huge waste of energy.

Agriculture (plantation/food) consumed 7 123 thousand tonnes of HSD (high-speed diesel) in 2003/04, accounting for 19.2% of the total HSD consumption during the year. Consumption of LDO (light diesel oil) and furnace oil for plantation in 2003/04 was 44 000 and 243 000 tonnes, respectively, accounting for 2.7% of the total LDO and 2.9% of the total furnace oil consumed in the country. Consumption of furnace oil for transport (agriculture retail trade) in the agriculture sector was 94 thousand tonnes (Ministry of Power and Natural Gas 2004). However, it is difficult to assess the total diesel consumption for agriculture from the available data.

 

Transport system in India is one of the largest in the world and serves a land area of 3.3 million square km and a population of over one billion. It consists mainly of roads, railways, and air services. Given its long coastline of approximately 7 517 km, India has a hub of over 150 seaports with inland water transport playing a small supplementary role in a few states.

Transport plays a significant role in the overall development of a nation?s economy. In the past decade, the Indian economy   has undergone many structural changes leading to decline of the share of the primary sectors (agriculture, forestry, and fishing) and increase in the share of the non-primary sectors (transport, communications, financing, manufacturing, etc.). Transportation being a derived demand, arising out of a need to fulfill other means, is significantly influenced by such structural changes in the economy. The contribution to GDP (gross domestic product), of the transport sector (including transportation, communications, trade and hotels) in 1993/94, was 411 billion rupees (at 1993/94 prices) and escalated to 794 billion rupees in 2003/04 (Central Statistics Office, 2005). Also the largest contributor to GDP in the transport sector in 2003/04 was road transport with a share of almost 62%.

In India transport demand, usually measured in passenger-km and freight-km, is increasing somewhat faster than the GDP. According to a World Bank study, India?s economy grew by 6% to 7% a year during the 1990s, and total transport demand grew by about 10% a year.

The transport modes vary in their infrastructural requirements, carrying capacities, capital and operating costs, energy consumption, and environmental impacts. In the last three decades, owing to easy accessibility, flexibility, and reliability, the share of both freight and passenger traffic has experienced a rapid shift from rail to road. However, the capacity of the road has not been able to keep pace with the increasing demand. In terms of rail-road modal mixes, the freight traffic carried by road transport is estimated to have increased from roughly 35% in 1970/71 to 70% in 2003/04 whereas the passenger traffic has increased from 67% to 85% during the same period. The NTPC (National Transport Policy Committee) set up by the Planning Commission in 1978 had advocated a 72% share to rail and 28% to road for freight transport on the basis of resource costs, break-even points, and fuel costs by the year 2000 (Planning Commission, 1980). Similarly, in the case of passenger transport the recommendation was to adopt specific measures to encourage diversion of traffic from personalized modes of motor transport to public transport system. Yet, the share of rail transport in freight movement continues to decline, which has enormous implications for fuel consumption.

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