On November 9, 2020, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) issued an order for scale-up and expansion of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam Utthan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) Scheme. It has set a target of enhanced solar capacity of 30.8 GigaWatt (GW) by 2022 with revised Central Financial Support of INR 34, 035 crores.
PM-KUSUM Scheme:
MNRE launched the PM KUSUM Scheme for farmers for installation of solar pumps and grid connected solar and other renewable power plants in India.
Objective:
i.MNRE launched the PM KUSUM Scheme for farmers to install solar pumps, grid-connected solar & other renewable power plants in the country. It was also approved with an objective of providing financial and water security.
ii.It aimed to add solar and other renewable capacity of 25, 750 MW by 2022 with a Financial support of INR 34, 422 Crores which includes service charge to implementing agencies.
iii.It is one of the initiatives to double the farmer’s income by 2022.
Implementing Agencies:
State Nodal Agencies (SNAs) of MNRE will coordinate States/UTs (Union Territory), Discoms and farmers for implementation of the scheme.
Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy proposed to initiate centralised tendering process for the year 2020-21 targeting 4.5 lakh standalone solar pumps in September 2020. In the first year of the scheme, the target was 1.75 lakh solar pumps. The tendering process is being done by EESL.
Components of the Scheme:
The scheme has 3 components
Component A– 10,000 megawatts (MW) of decentralized ground mounted grid connected renewable power plants of individual plant size up to 2 MW.
Component B– Installation of 17.50 lakh unique solar powered agricultural pumps with an individual pump capacity of up to 7.5 Horse Power(HP).
Component C– Solarisation of 10 lakh grid connected agricultural pumps with unique pump capacity of up to 7.5 HP.
All three components of the Scheme combined together will result in saving of about 27 Million Tonnes of CO2 emission per annum.
India’s Renewable Energy Targets:
i.In September 2019, United Nations Climate Action Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the increase of India’s Renewable Energy Target to 450 GW by 2030 from 175 GigaWatts by 2022.
ii.450 GW of Power Generation capacity would come from renewables like Solar and Wind & 60 GW would come from hydro-electric power.
Recent Related News:
i.On 20th May 2020, The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) announced that the Government of India launched a scheme for 100% solarisation of Konark Sun Temple and Konark town in Odisha.
About Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE):
Minister of State (MoS), (Independent Charge) – Raj Kumar Singh
Headquarters – New Delhi
