India needs to rapidly increase energy consumption to achieve the ambitious target of 9 per cent economic growth in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Wednesday.

"We have set for ourselves an ambitious target of 9 per cent annual growth in GDP in the 12th Five-Year Plan.

"This high rate of economic growth would require our energy consumption also to increase rapidly," he said at the National Energy Conservation Day celebrations in New Delhi.

Click NEXT to read further. . .

The government has targeted 9 per cent annual expansion in the country's GDP over the next five years, even though the country's economy is passing through a difficult phase.

The Centre recently reduced the GDP growth forecast for the ongoing 2011-12 financial year to 7.5 per cent (plus/minus 0.25 per cent), as against the earlier projection of around 9 per cent.

Click NEXT to read further. . .

Singh said since the country relies on imports for a large component of its energy requirement, it is vital to 're-double' efforts to enhance energy efficiency as a step towards reducing the energy intensity of the national gross domestic product.

"Since we are largely dependent on fossil fuel, any improvement in energy efficiency of our thermal power generation plan would help reduce the energy intensity of our GDP," the Prime Minister said.

Click NEXT to read further. . .

The Prime Minister also said India should encourage the use of super-critical and ultra-super critical technologies for power generation to reduce energy intensity.

The National Solar Mission aims to generate 20,000 MW of solar power by 2020.

"Successful implementation of the National Mission. . .would lead to annual fuel saving of about 23 million tones oil equivalent -- in coal, gas and petroleum products -- along with an expected avoided capacity addition of over 19,000 MW," Singh said.