May 4, 2015: In order to provide low cost finance to renewable energy projects, Government announced its commitment in the budget for 2013-14 to provide funds from the National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) to Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) to on-lend to viable renewable energy projects. Rs 1 billion and Rs 2 billion were released to IREDA for this purpose from NCEF in the year 2013-14 and 2014-15 respectively. This was stated by Piyush Goyal, minister of state (IC) for power, coal and new and renewable energy in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.
The minister further stated that as per the scheme not more than 30 per cent of the outstanding loan amount shall be refinanced to banks/ financial institutions, wherein the end-users will get said amount at a maximum rate of interest of 5 per cent p.a. Renewable power projects of about 200MW are expected to be supported under the scheme, the Minister added.
