Saturday, November 29, 2014: A gross budgetary support of Rs 40,500 million has been proposed by renewable energy ministry for establishing 25 solar parks of 500 MW each and ultra-mega solar power projects for adding 20,000 MW green generation capacity within next five year.
The proposed money will be spent in phases with Rs 5000 million in 2014-15 to further up to Rs 14,000 million in 2018-19. Solar Energy Corporation of India under the ministry would act as a nodal agency and thus would also manage the funding for a fee, equivalent to 1 per cent of the grant disbursed. The parks would be made in alliance with the state governments.
Up till now, 12 states have given their consent for setting up solar plants, according to the renewable energy minister Piyush Goyal. He further added that according to the norms set up by the central tariff regulator, all the project developers would be shortlisted through bidding.
Also, the developers would be called after all the statutory approvals get in place. Further the land would be levelled and the parks would be given all additional infrastructures such as roads, water and communication facilities, needed for operating the plants. All these measures would assist in saving the additional expenditure by developers and also in reducing the project cost.
The central funds would be released according to the set milestones, starting with one per cent on the date of issue of administrative approval, which will further go up to 20 per cent at the time of acquisition of 50 per cent of land and another 20 per cent would be released upon the financial closure, which would go up till 25 per cent upon construction of pooling substation, land development and other facilities. And the remaining 20 per cent and 10 per cent fund would be released in link to the grid connectivity and upon completion of project, respectively.
