PANAJI: A delegation from the World Bank has arrived in Goa for talks with state govt to set up what is going to be the first sub-national climate resilient green fund to address Goa’s thrust towards adoption of renewable energy.
The blended finance scheme will see the World Bank pooling resources with NABARD, SIDBI and Power Finance Corporation, among others to try and bring down the cost of lending for green initiatives taken up by state and MSMEs in Goa.
Once operational and overseen by a project management unit, Goa will submit proposals to source funds for carbon and climate-resilient investments.
“Finance is a critical enabler and to this end we are partnering with the World Bank, SIDBI and other partners to launch a blended finance facility for Goa,” said power minister Ramakrishna Dhavalikar.
This will serve as template for other states
This partnership will blend finance from govt, international development finance agencies and private sector to give impetus to Goa’s green ambitions and kick-start the revolution,” said Dhavalikar.
Goa has already submitted its proposal to the Niti Aayog and chief minister Pramod Sawant had met with Niti Aayog officials last week to obtain the final approval from the department of economic affairs to set up the fund.
“This facility is one of the first sub-national facilities of its kind in India. This will serve as a template for other states to adopt at the national level,” said Dhavalikar. Goa Energy Development Agency member secretary Sanjeev Joglekar said that the fund is being set up as an outcome of Sawant’s 100% renewable energy plan for Goa which was announced at the G20 Summit.
“State govt realised that it would require finance to set up and achieve the goals set out in the RE plan,” said Joglekar. “The state government approached the World Bank and we are in the final stages of starting a climate fund for the state of Goa.”
Sivasubramanian Raman, the chairman and managing director of SIDBI arrived in Goa on Monday, a day ahead of the MoU signing for the blended finance fund. “SIDBI, World Bank and other agencies have come together as a consortium and therefore we try to lower the cost of finance for the renewable energy and climate mitigation measures.
We need to bring in other people’s money and blend it with our money and reduce the overall cost of financing,” Raman told TOI.
Raman said that the final beneficiaries will be MSMEs as the funds will be offered to promote adoption of solar plants, electric mobility and other climate change mitigation measures.
The three were speaking at the launch of SIDBI’s scheme that will use the e-RUPI platform to incentivise MSMEs to adopt rooftop solar power plants and other renewable energy products.
SIDBI has tied up with YES Bank and National Payments Corporation of India to incentivise MSMEs to take up sustainability audits where SIDBI will pay a part of the cost of the audit by providing e-RUPI vouchers.
