The year 2016 may witness the mushrooming of a number of schools, hospitals, government buildings and residential colonies, especially in rural pockets, with solar-powered rooftop panels.
It is an easy presumption, going by the Rs. 50,000-crore budget announced by the government for installation of grid-connected rooftop system in five years as part of the National Solar Mission (NSM).
The course of action charted out for the days to come is attractive, and if put into practice, it can attract a good number of rural consumers, who can pay much less for power consumed by them in the long run.
According to the draft plan, a capital subsidy of 30 per cent will be given to general category States and Union Territories and 70 per cent for Special Category State such as Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and UTs like Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has set a target for installation of 100 GW solar power, of which 40 GW is to come from grid-connected solar rooftop plants.
But, as far as the Central Financial Assistance (CFA) is concerned, the Ministry has made it clear that it will not be provided for commercial and industrial establishments in the private sector, as they are eligible for other benefits such as accelerated depreciation, customs duty concessions, excise duty exemptions and tax holiday.
Industrial and commercial electricity tariff is usually high for them, and hence those sectors do not need any government CFA to make solar power attractive.
“For all other sectors, the CFA pattern will remain the same i.e., 30 per cent of the benchmark cost for general category States and Union Territories and 70 per cent of cost for Special Category States,” clarifies K. Srinivasa Rao, Krishna District Manager, New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (NREDCAP).
Besides Central Financial Assistance, according to him, other benefits includes accelerated depreciation benefits for industrial and commercial buildings and customs duty concessions and excise duty exemptions.
Loans are available up to Rs. 15 crore for renewable energy projects and up to Rs. 10 lakh for individual loans under priority sector lending, he said.
