India needs energy that is accessible to the poor, says PM Modi

India is giving priority to moving towards a natural gas-based economy and efforts must be made to raise local production of the fuel while also creating infrastructure to import it, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told an energy conference on Monday.

"Natural gas is the next-generation fossil fuel, cheaper and less polluting," Modi said in an address at India`s flagship energy event, Petrotech. 

India needs energt that is accessible to the poor, he added.

"Efforts must be made to increase natural gas production whole also creating import infrastructure to meet the growing domestic demand," Modi said.

(Reporting by Promit Mukherjee and Sudarshan Varadan; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)