India set to be leader in green hydrogen: Puri

India is more conscious of going for green energy than any other country in the world, Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Monday.

He said special emphasis is being given on green hydrogen, biofuel blending and exploration and production of biofuel from alternative sources. Puri asserted that India would eventually become a leader in the green hydrogen space. The target of 20 per cent of ethanol blending has been brought forward from 2030 to 2025 and it would be definitely achieved, he said.

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Puri, also Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs, said India responded quickly and effectively when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world and one of the most important decisions was to fast-track vaccine development and manufacturing on a war footing.

“Whatever vaccine manufacturing capacity India had earlier, had almost got dismantled during the 2004-2014 period,” Puri said, while emphasising that one of the most important decisions taken by the Modi government after the pandemic hit the world was to ramp up the vaccine manufacturing at an unprecedented speed.

The minister said he doesn’t want to sound political on this. “While we have seen pandemics before, when this Covid-19 pandemic hit us, it was more reminiscent of Spanish Flu due to the amount of destruction it caused across the world,” he said.

Speaking at a session on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 here, Puri also talked about various transformational changes that have happened after 2014 during the Narendra Modi government. The breakfast session on ‘Unleashing power of Indian diaspora for philanthropy, entrepreneurship and social impact’, was organised by industry body CII and Indiaspora.