The Budget gave a clear indication of the government’s focus to achieve sustainable energy for all.

- Anil Chaudhry, Country President and Managing Director, Schneider Electric India Anil Chaudhry, Country President and Managing Director, Schneider Electric India, on the Union Budget 2017-18: With India being the fifth largest energy consumer in the world, the country needs to make a concerted effort in promoting energy-efficiency by reducing its dependence on fossil fuels and curtailing carbon footprints. While access to energy is a basic human right, we need to make it sustainable. The Budget gave a clear indication of the government’s focus to achieve ‘sustainable energy for all’, with two of its critical steps; firstly, by providing a boost to rural electrification with a 25 per cent increase in the outlay for key power schemes like Integrated Power Development Scheme and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna. This is expected to fast track the rural electrification drive of the government, which is now planned to be completed by May 1, 2018. Secondly, by strengthening its focus on renewable energy forms with the inflow of another 20 GW in the next fiscal. This however, will require investments in grid management and digitisation of the grid to ensure supply of quality reliable and safe power. It is important to stress that along with rural electrification, it is equally important to provide reliable and quality power, which requires investments towards modernisation of the country’s transmission and distribution power networks and use of digitisation in grid management.