Updated on Thursday, September 28, 2006, 00:00 IST

New Delhi, Sept 28: Sources of renewable energy, whose usage has increased five-fold in recent years, should be tapped to a greater extent to help India achieve its goal of energy security by 2020, President A P J Abdul Kalam said on Thursday.

Apart from traditional sources of energy, it would look to power generated through renewable energy technologies, which has to be increased from the current level of five per cent to 25 percent, Kalam said in the 2006 Philip Tobias lecture delivered via videoconferencing from the Rashtrapati Bhavan's multimedia studio to an audience in Johannesburg.

In his lecture titled "human evolution and progress", Kalam spoke about challenges before modern society like provision of adequate and safe drinking water and sanitation for a vast number of people around the globe, an official release said.

The search for alternate and clean sources of energy in light of the predicted depletion of fossil fuels over the next 10 decades, low-intensity terrorism, disease and environmental degradation were listed by Kalam among the challenges confronting mankind.

Stating that energy was an important parameter for development, he said the continuously increasing cost of oil sourced from fossil materials has prompted many groups to seriously consider alternative energy options.

He said in the transportation sector, India plans to use a large proportion of bio-diesel and ethanol.

Referring to the issue of education, Kalam said that if children were not given value-based teaching in school, no government or society could establish a transparent society or a society with integrity.

Concluding his address, he said India had identified five areas -- agriculture and food processing, education and healthcare, information and communication technology, infrastructure development and self-reliance in critical technologies -- to concentrate on so that its mission of becoming a developed nation was realised.

The annual lecture was instituted in honour of Phillip Tobias, a well-known South African scientist in the fields of genetics through anatomical studies to pealaeonthropology.

Bureau Report