What concrete steps should India take to become a less oil dependant economy??

Agree to that .. need to have alternative fuel like biofuel for heavy transport where one doesnt need high throttle experience...junking of old vehicles , coupled with car pooling

Subsidies should be removed as it only leads to dead weight loss and burden comes to common man and oil companies

Tax ratio intervals can be rearranged as a function of consumed fuel per seat.kilometer for passenger cars or per kg.km for material carriers. It will orientate vehicle buyers to choose less fuel consuming ones, thus demand will enforce vehicle producers to develope less fuel consuming technologies.

In addition to investment on alternate and more green energy resources and regulatory policies, we should also have better and swifter enforcements. 

We are a developed country and we still have bedford trucks from the 1940s plying our streets! Yes, we must set an age after which a vehicle must be junked or scrapped. 

We must also encourage research in to alternate sources by giving them tax benefits for proven research.

For the less oil independent economy we the common man has to take a lots of steps such as using public transport rather than private transport, Use of Cycle for short distance which make u healthy and conserve oil also. And thirdly find how to use natural energies such as solar, wind etc for our day to day life.

With the issue of depleting oil reserves, the urgent need of the hour is to find out the alternative resource for oil. Countries like China which have M85 & M100 from public vehicles is planning to implement M85 for smaller vehicles and for private vehicles. With the implementation of M85 the consumption of oil will drastically come down. (M85: mixture of methanol (85%) and gasoline(15%)).

Even developed countries are moving towards higher methanol or ethanol mixture with the gasoline. Given the fact that the fuel efficiency can also be increased, why is that India alone not implementing this policy?

The best answer I sought are,

1. We do not have huge ethanol or methanol production

2. The main source of ethanol production in India is from Sugar Cane industry and for Methanol we have to dependent upon yet another oil dependent "natural gas".

So what are we supposed to do?

1. Immunized our agriculture system and increase the productivity. Well are doing it but with the stand of reducing the inflation. Well this alone will not be enough. We need to think on the strategic perspective as not to increase the food prices when the alternative fuel policy is implimented.

2.Develop an strategic relationship with Industries that produce ethanol so as not to leave them free hand to produce what ever they need.

Well all these are not an job to be done in a flick. It is obviously an 1000 mile journey but one or the other day we need to cross all those 1000 miles. Better to start early.....

R&D andiInvestment to renewable sources will be time and source loss, but nuclear instead.

As a simple general chemistry knowledge, if the temperature of any chemical reaction is increased by 10 degree Celcius, its reaction time is halved. By using this rule, plant and animal remain mixtures can be converted into crude oil at around 400 or 500 degree Celcius in a couple of days instead of million years at 60 or 70 degree Celcius. This experiment has been done to prove the organic theory for the origin of hydrocarbons, but not to produce oil. Because the input energy for this process is more then the output can be obtained from the product. So, Mr. Ravikirian Maske's thought is tecnically feasible but not economically.

Currently all world is using mostly energy source as Petroleum (Oil & Gas) and Coal. This is natural resource. But has been generated through some natural process. We need to do more R&D to manufacture these aurtifically but easily with low cost from plantation or any other naturaly available resources. We should do  R&D in fast growing of plant which can be used as Fuel and then utilized whatever available land for such plantation.

rail and sea transportation also require oil

Priorities should be given to railway and sea transportations.

MR.SRINIVASAN`S IDEA OF EXPLOITING SOLAR AND WIND ENERGY IF IMPLEMENTED PROPERLY WILL NOT ONLY INCREASE ENERGY BUT WILL BE A GREAT BOON FOR PEOPLE LIVING IN RURAL AREAS BY GIVING THEM PERMANENT EMPLOYMENT,ASSURED INCOME AND UPGRADATION OF THEIR LIFESTYLE.

impose more duties on luxury cars and also restrict giving licence to new car and motorbike setting industries. Encourage use of cycle and electric operated vehicles by giving tax deduction and incentives.