India must explore alternative energy sources: President

India must explore alternative energy sources as its conventional resources are "inadequate" for sustaining high levels of consumption, President Pranab Mukherjee said here Monday.

"India is the fourth-biggest consumer of energy in the world, after the US, China and Russia. To sustain high levels of consumption, our energy resources are inadequate. We must explore alternative energy models to reduce our dependence on conventional sources," Mukherjee said while addressing the annual convocation of the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies here.

He also said that energy intensity - the measure of energy efficiency of an economy - indicated that India uses much more energy to produce one unit of GDP, as compared to countries like Britain, Germany, Japan and the US.

"It (achieving high growth) calls for higher energy production and for devising measures that promote energy efficiency. We must explore alternative energy models to reduce our dependence on conventional sources of energy," he said.