India to Raise Funds for Clean Energy Programs
India's cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal to raise over $350 million from a bond sale to fund its renewable energy development schemes in a bid to achieve its ambitious clean energy goals.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target of raising India's renewable energy generating capacity to 175 gigawatts by 2022, requiring about $100 billion in investments, as part of the fight against climate change by the world's third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter and to supply power to all of the country's 1.3 billion people.
India's cabinet, chaired by Modi, has approved raising 23.6 billion Indian rupees ($365 million) in bonds through the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) for developing additional capacity in the renewable energy sector.
The move is a part of the government's 2016-17 financial budget proposal in which it allocated 40 billion rupees ($617.81 million) to IREDA to issue government-serviced bonds.
IREDA, a government-run financial institution which provides assistance for projects relating to renewable energy, has already raised 16.4 billion rupees of the allocated sum through bond issues.
(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan and Rajesh Kumar Singh)
