Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged citizens and businesses to conserve fuel and revive work-from-home practices to cut petrol and diesel consumption, as a surge in global energy prices strains the country's foreign exchange reserves.

Addressing a rally organised by Telangana BJP here, PM Modi suggested measures, including judicious use of petrol and diesel, using metro rail services in cities, car pooling, maximum use of EVs, utilising railway services to send parcels, and working from home to save foreign exchange.

Emphasising that the Centre is trying to shield people from the adverse impact of the war in West Asia, the prime minister said that given the massive spike in prices of petrol and fertiliser, along with supply chain pressures, difficulties can increase despite various measures by the government to overcome the crisis.

"That's why, during the global crisis, keeping the country above all else, we have to take resolutions. We have developed work from home, virtual meetings, video conferencing and many other methods during corona. We got habituated to it. The need of the hour is to resume those methods", the prime minister said.

PM Modi also called for postponing gold purchases and foreign travel for one year. "We have to save foreign exchange by any means," he said.

He also called for reducing consumption of edible oil, reducing use of chemical fertilisers, promoting natural farming and swadeshi products to save foreign exchange and to make the country self-reliant.

While senior BJP leaders hailed PM Modi's message, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said that the prime minister is still "clueless" on India's energy security, despite three months into the Iran-US war.

"It is shameless, reckless and downright immoral that the PM is pushing the common citizen into inconvenience, instead of building contingencies to ensure our economy is unaffected by this global crisis," Venugopal said in a post on X.

"When elections and petty politics are the sole priority of the PM, the end result is an impending economic catastrophe," he added.