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Singh said the government plans to decarbonize agriculture under the PM-KUSUM scheme with an ambition of switching over the entire agriculture operation system to renewables
India has emerged as a global leader in tackling the three main challenges in the energy sector — energy access, energy transition and climate change, said the minister
New Delhi: Power Minister RK Singh has said that the ministry is going to place a draft of the new PM-KUSUM scheme before the Cabinet very soon, under which the financial outlay of the scheme will be increased to Rs 20,000 crore. Addressing the Economic Times Energy Leadership Summit on Thursday, Singh said, "In the new scheme (PM-KUSUM) that we are going to place before the Cabinet very soon, we are laying aside Rs 20,000 crore for agriculture feeders. The total capacity that we are going to install under the KUSUM scheme is about 110 GW."
Singh said the government plans to decarbonize agriculture under the provisions of the PM-KUSUM scheme with an ambition of switching over the entire agriculture operation system to renewables. "As part of the plan, the government is focusing on setting up agricultural feeders and has earmarked around Rs 15,000 crore for projects," said Singh.
While noting that Covid has turned out to be a challenge for the entire economy, Singh said that it has been a challenge for the power sector as well. "To meet this challenge, we had to infuse liquidity into the system under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, which made it possible for distribution companies to pay for the power purchased during the lockdown. This lockdown has also affected the cash flows of the distribution companies and generating companies. The problem, of course, is bigger in those distribution companies where the cross-subsidies are higher as it is the industrial and commercial consumers that bear most of the brunt of cross subsidy. And during the COVID lockdown, both these commercial and industrial sectors were largely shut down," said the Power Minister.
The minister added that the first tranche of liquidity infusion of Rs 1.5 lakh crore disbursed to discoms has strengthened the system as new sub-stations have been established and transformers have been purchased by distribution companies. "The challenges posed by COVID should end once we have vaccinated sufficient number of people," he added.
Singh said that India has emerged as a global leader in tackling the three main challenges in the energy sector — energy access, energy transition and climate change — in tandem with each other. "In all the three challenges including energy access, energy transition and climate change, India has emerged as a leader. The entire world is saying this today. We are the only country of the G20 countries, who is on track for a sub two degree rise in temperature," said the Power Minister.
"The Climate Change Performance Index of 2020 rates India as among the 10 highest performers for climate action and we are the only country on track for keeping well below 2 degrees rise in temperature. We have done it in a very, very short timeframe," said the minister.
Commenting on the climate commitments made by India, Singh said, "Our per capita emission is 60 percent of the world average. The Climate Transparency Report of 2020 rated India as the only G20 nation to meet its climate commitments. India is going to overachieve its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) targets committed as part of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change."
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