President of India to give away National Energy Conservation Awards and National Painting Competition Prizes
Hon’ble President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, will preside as the Chief Guest over the National Energy Conservation Day celebrations, to be held in New Delhi, on 14th December, 2017. The occasion will also be graced by the presence of Union Minister of State (IC) for Power and New & Renewable Energy, Shri Raj Kumar Singh.
Hon’ble President of India will give away National Energy Conservation Awards to industries that have demonstrated measurable reductions in their energy use as part of the National Energy Conservation Awards Programme. During the event, a short film on the Energy Efficiency achievements in the Industry Sector will also be shown. Further, Shri Kovind will present the National Painting Competition Prizes and visit the exhibition of the prize -winning paintings. This year, over 1.22 crore children, between 4th and 9th standards from across India, participated in the National Painting Competition and 322 industrial units and establishments from key sectors participated in the National Energy Conservation Awards 2017.
BACKGROUND
The Energy Conservation Day is organized on 14th December each year by Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), under Ministry of Power, with an aim to demonstrate India’s achievements in energy efficiency and conservation, while working for its ambition of holistic development as part of the nation’s overall effort towards climate change mitigation. As part of its awareness outreach, BEE recognizes and encourages endeavours of industries in reducing energy consumption by felicitating them with National Energy Conservation Awards. BEE also awards prizes to the national winners of the annual National Painting Competition on Energy Conservation.
In order to realize its development goals, India’s energy demand is expected to double between 2013 and 2030, to approximately 1500 million tonnes of oil equivalent. The mission of BEE is to assist in developing policies and strategies that will help reduce this energy demand by promoting widespread adoption of energy efficiency measures.
The National Energy Conservation Awards Programme recognizes the energy efficiency achievements in 56 sub sectors across industry, establishments and institutions such as thermal power stations, office and BPO buildings, hotels, hospitals, shopping malls, zonal railways, railway workshops and stations, municipalities, State Designated Agencies and manufacturers of BEE Star labeled appliances/equipment and electricity distribution companies.
In the last 19 years (1999-2017) of the award scheme, the award participants have collectively invested over Rs. 48,000 crores in energy efficient technologies and processes, and saved nearly Rs. 38,000 crores through reduced electricity bills and avoided capacity generation. In energy terms, they have saved over 44 Billion kWh of electrical energy, 5.1 billion litres of oil, 22.6 million metric tonnes of coal and 250 billion cubic meters of gas.