Union Textiles Minister Giriraj Singh on Saturday, 11 July 2026, shared data showing that India's energy intensity has fallen by 30 per cent since 1991, citing the development as evidence that the country's vulnerability to global oil price shocks has significantly diminished over three decades of structural reform.

Context

Posting on X via the NaMo App, Singh highlighted a report indicating that "1991 ke baad Bharat ki energy intensity 30% ghati, tel sankat ka asar hua kam" ('India's energy intensity has fallen 30% since 1991, the impact of oil crises has reduced'). The minister's post draws attention to a long-run structural shift in how efficiently the Indian economy uses energy to generate output.

Energy intensity measures the amount of energy consumed per unit of GDP. A sustained decline means the economy is producing more economic value for every unit of energy it burns — a marker of industrial modernisation and improved energy productivity.

Policy Backdrop

The 1991 economic liberalisation — launched under Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Manmohan Singh during a balance-of-payments crisis — dismantled industrial licensing and reduced import barriers. Economists have long argued that the competitive pressures unleashed by those reforms pushed Indian industry toward leaner, more efficient production processes.

Successive governments reinforced this trajectory through dedicated energy-efficiency architecture. The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), established in 2002 under the Ministry of Power, has driven programmes spanning industrial units, appliances, and buildings. The Perform Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme, which incentivises large energy consumers to hit efficiency targets and trade surplus certificates, is among the flagship instruments credited with accelerating the decline in energy intensity.

The same downward trend in energy intensity underpins India's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, where reducing the emissions intensity of GDP is a core commitment.

Stakeholders and Impact

Indian industries — particularly energy-intensive sectors such as steel, cement, aluminium, and textiles — are the primary actors whose operational upgrades have driven the aggregate improvement. A lower energy-intensity economy is also less exposed to imported inflation triggered by crude oil price spikes, a vulnerability that has historically strained India's current account and the rupee.

Oil importers and refiners face a structurally different demand environment compared with the early 1990s, when India's oil import bill could rapidly destabilise public finances during global supply disruptions. The 30 per cent reduction in energy intensity since 1991 represents a meaningful buffer against such shocks, even as absolute energy consumption continues to rise with economic growth.

What's Next

Analysts will watch for the next Economic Survey chapter dedicated to energy, which typically quantifies India's energy productivity gains and sets the tone for near-term policy. Any revision of targets under the PAT scheme or a new cycle of BEE star-rating norms for appliances could further accelerate the trajectory that Singh's post celebrates.

As India pushes toward its 2070 net-zero target, sustaining and deepening the decline in energy intensity will be central to squaring the circle between rapid economic expansion and climate commitments — making the post-1991 record both a benchmark and a baseline for future ambition.