India has become part of IEA Association that will allow the country play a more "visible and influential" role in the global energy landscape.
The "Activation of Association" is expected to serve as a bridge and platform for wider-ranging and deeper co-operation and collaboration between IEA member and Association countries in the future.
India's engagement with the International Energy Agency (IEA) has enhanced over the last two decades and the "Association" status would facilitate it to participate in meetings of the standing groups, committees and working groups that constitute the IEA governance structure.
"At a brief ceremony here, Power Minister Piyush Goyal handed over the formal letter in this regard to Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director, IEA, a Power Ministry statement said.
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and senior officials from ministries of oil and power were also present on the occasion.
The IEA, which covers the entire spectrum of energy globally, will play an important role in India's energy security context, it said.
The Minister envisaged a greater partnership with IEA in taking forward the International Solar Alliance framework to other countries in the world.
Further, Goyal said, India pursues its key development objectives of energy access, energy security and environmental sustainability.
In this context, India has a vision of ensuring 24x7 affordable and environment friendly 'Power for All' and deeper engagement with IEA is a component of achieving this vision.
The minister said this does not cast any additional obligation on India, however, gives an opportunity for the country to become the voice of the developing countries.
Speaking on the occasion, Pradhan said India is world's 3rd largest consumer of energy, hence a very big market for catering the energy demands of a billion plus people.
He added that it is essential to realise mutual benefits for India and IEA in the global energy space.
About this development, Dr Birol said that today over 70 per cent of world's energy consumption is under the IEA umbrella which increases its relevance in global energy governance manifold.
He added that since India is moving fast to the centre-stage of Global Energy landscape, as pointed out by IEA's India Energy Outlook 2015, IEA would look forward to increasing engagement with India in the areas like renewable energy, energy efficiency, among others.
Today, IEA is an important part of global dialogue on energy, providing research, data/statistics, analysis and recommendations on the global energy sector.
India can also richly gain from IEA's data gathering processes, survey methodologies and range of energy data, which could enable India in the near future to set up its own robust integrated database agency.
India's participation will enrich the energy efficiency and renewable sectors of IEA member and other countries.
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