Climate parliamentarians are upset at the non-utilisation of the National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF), which presently has `8,200 crore in its kitty.
The fund had been announced in 2010-11 to finance research in clean energy and is being raised by levying `50 on each tonne of coal being mined or imported.
A recent meeting of the Climate Parliament India Steering Committee chaired by BJP MP Rajeev Pratap Rudy highlighted that this fund was being used to meet budgetary shortfall in other ministries rather than push for research and innovation.
Parliamentarians including Milind Deora, Dr Sanjay Jaiswal, P.D. Rai, K.N. Singh Deo and Vandana Chavan complained that some of the budgetary shortfalls being met included `200 crore that had been approved for the environment ministry’s Green India mission while another `1,875 crore was approved for funding solar projects under the second phase of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission.
Jayant Chaudhary MP, a member of the steering committee, maintains that the NCEF should be housed with the ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) rather than with the ministry of finance and had moved a private member’s bill last Thursday to this effect.
“Ministries seldom talk to each other and continue to work in a pigeonhole fashion. And there is no firm commitment about the achievement of 15 per cent renewable energy in the total electricity mix under the National Action Plan for Climate change,” he said.
The MNRE had first set an ambitious target of 90000 MW by 2020. This was whittled down to 30000 MW to be met by 2017. The corresponding play outlay was fixed at `19,113 crore but so far the ministry has received `1,152 crore in 2012-13 and `1,533 in 2013-14 which works out to 14 per cent of its budgetary allocation.
Mr Chaudhary further called for the creation of a Non-Risk Guarantee Fund, which will take care of the payment risk to private utilities under the solar mission who often do not receive payments because several state utilities are running at a loss.
MPs further pointed out that presently renewable energy was contributing 6.4 per cent to the total grid electricity in 2012-13.