Amid growing concerns over rising fuel prices, RK Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Penal on Climate Change (IPCC) on Tuesday sought abolition of subsidy on kerosene oil used in lamps, asserting that it was against climate change mitigation policy.
?Kerosene subsidies while having aided the poor to obtain light in the past are not only incompatible with the climate change mitigation policy but also becoming exorbitant in terms of social costs due to rising fuel prices,? Pachauri said at a news conference.
He was of the opinion that instead of providing subsidy on kerosene oil-based lamps, efforts should be made to promote renewable energy resources such as solar lantern and photovolatic cells.
Hailing the recently released National Action Plan on Climate Change which pushes for solar energy, he said one of the key aspect of promoting renewable energy was to divert resources allocated to ?distorting subsidies? for non-renewable fuels, particularly if they are being misused.
The leading environmentalist claimed that due to rapidly rising fuel prices, under recoveries for kerosene have been projected to lie between Rs 62,283 crore to Rs 247,312 crore in 2008-09.
Referring to a project ?Lighting a Billion Lives? launched by Teri wherein kerosene lamps were replaced with solar lanterns in villages, he said, ?The economies of scale was in favour of the later.?