Concerned over “distortions” that have crept into the country’s energy pricing policies, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for a national debate on the issue. He asked for public policy choices that will enable government to address the challenge in making clean and affordable energy available to all our people.

“Can we afford to persist with the distortions that have long crept into our energy pricing policies? Are we contributing to environmental degradation through some of our energy pricing policies? he asked at TERI’s Delhi Sustainable Development Summit here.

Singh questioned whether the country was encouraging overuse of resources through misdirected subsidies and if there was a calculation of long term costs of short term benefits.

He asked whether the country was hurting its future energy security needs by shirking the responsibility to grapple with the political challenges on hand. “We need a much wider national debate on such issues”, he said.