Lok Sabha Debates
Need To Utilize The National Clean Energy Fund. on 21 August, 2012
> Title: Need to utilize the National Clean Energy Fund.
SHRI KALIKESH NARAYAN SINGH DEO (BOLANGIR): :The National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) is expected to grow to a cumulative size of around Rs. 8000 crore by 2012-13 through the levy of a Clean Energy Cess of Rs. 50 per tonne on coal produced domestically and imported to India. The Fund is meant for investment in entrepreneurial ventures and research in the field of clean energy technologies. But more than 80 per cent of the corpus of NCEF remains unutilised. On the other hand, there is great urgency for rapid utilisation of renewable energy resources of the country for which the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy had made a comprehensive financial resource assessment in February 2011.
I urge the Government to earmark at least 50 per cent of the Fund for research and development in renewable energy, for creating and funding a partial risk guarantee fund, and for viability gap funding of renewable energy projects, especially for strengthening suitable evacuation and transmission infrastructure for renewable energy.