New Delhi, August 15, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday outlined an ambitious energy and resource strategy for India, setting a target of 100 GW of nuclear power capacity by 2047 and announcing an Rs 85,000 crore push to accelerate offshore resource exploration.
Addressing the nation from the Red Fort on the 80th Independence Day, Modi identified critical minerals, energy security and domestic resource exploration as key components of India’s future growth, particularly as emerging technologies drive up electricity demand.
“The entire technology sector is dependent on critical minerals,” Modi said, highlighting the government’s National Critical Minerals Mission and the Critical Minerals Corridor announced in the Budget.
He said India was signing agreements with several countries to secure critical mineral supplies and that other nations were increasingly placing their trust in India in this sector.
Linking resource security with technological development, Modi said the growing use of artificial intelligence, semiconductor manufacturing and data centres would significantly increase India’s energy requirements.
“It is now difficult to run the new world without energy,” he said, stressing that large quantities of electricity would be needed to support the expansion of chips, AI and data centres.
The Prime Minister said nuclear power would be an important component of India’s future energy security. He said Parliament’s passage of the SHANTI Act had opened a new pathway for the sector and reiterated the target of achieving 100 GW of nuclear power capacity by 2047.
The government also plans to begin work on five new nuclear reactors within the current decade.
Turning to offshore resources, Modi said India had opened up areas for exploration and was working to identify new reserves beneath the sea. Referring to the Samudra Manthan initiative announced last year, he said the government had recently decided to allocate Rs 85,000 crore to accelerate the programme.
Modi also criticised what he described as excessive restrictions on offshore exploration in the past, claiming that 99 per cent of India’s coastal areas had effectively been treated as no-go zones.
Highlighting progress in the energy sector, he said India’s piped natural gas network had expanded from 70 cities before 2014 to 700 cities at present. Piped gas connections, he said, were being extended from around 20–22 lakh households before 2014 to nearly 1.75 crore households.
Modi also pointed to the expansion of solar power, saying India’s installed solar energy capacity had risen from just 2 GW around 12 years ago to 160 GW currently.
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