Respected Hon'ble Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh Ji, Hon'ble Minister of Power Thiru. P.M. Sayeed Ji, My colleague Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology Dr. Shakeel Ahmed Ji, Secretary (Power) (Thiru. R.V. Shahi), Secretary (Posts) (Thiru. R. Ganesan), Distinguished Guests, Members of the Media, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I feel honoured to be associated with the release of a commemorative postage stamp by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India on National Energy Conservation Day. Conservation of energy implies using less energy for the same level of activity. It brings down costs of production, optimizes the use of limited financial resources, increases global competitiveness of industry and reduces depletion of finite fossil fuel resources. Since energy conservation has a direct impact on economic development and also environmental protection, the saving of energy becomes crucial, specially for developing countries like India.

There is a growing awareness of the problems being faced by us due to the excessive and sometimes, wasteful use of energy. In our society, electricity consumption has increased by several times in the past century. During the past 200 years the use of fossil fuels has made mankind a dominating factor in the green house effect. The large scale and world wide use of fossil fuels to generate heat, power, and electricity for growing populations as well as the burning of large areas of tropical forests for agriculture have given the enormous emission of carbon dioxide and other green house gases in the atmosphere.

While Indian industry has made rapid strides on several fronts since independence, many of the practices and activities which utilize petroleum products, however, are not efficient as compared to international standards. This is on account of the use of obsolete technology, lower capacity utilization, and poor handling, operating and maintenance practices. If industry saves energy, it will not only reduce costs of production but also the level of pollution.

Conservation along with preservation is the need of the hour which involves personal ethics, choices, priorities etc. Most of us would be willing to reduce our energy use if we know how to do it and if it were not too inconvenient. Conservation of energy is not only about improvement of energy efficiency of our activities, it also requires structural changes towards less energy intensive activities.

It is in this context the Ministry of Power has started making a significant impact on the Indian energy scenario and it is a matter of pleasure that an action plan has been drawn up through various programmes on Energy Conservation.

India Post is proud to join the commemoration of this day as the National Energy Conservation Day with release of this postage stamp.

India Post has brought out stamps on Non-Conventional Sources of Energy earlier such as the themes of Solar Energy and bio-gas.

It is hoped that this will set an example of inter departmental coordination for the cause and will lead to the integration of the efforts of different Ministries for a combined approach towards the issue of Energy Conservation and Environment protection.

Thank you.