Budget 2024: Fillip to clean energy schemes

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's budget boosts clean energy initiatives, including solar subsidies and nuclear reactor development, with no new schemes.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget address gave a fillip to several commitments made in the interim Budget in February to incentivise clean energy but stopped short of announcing new schemes.

The Pradhan Mantri Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojna, which aims at providing subsidised rooftop solar installations to one crore households, has been allocated nearly ₹10,000 crore this year. This is more than twice the ₹4,970 crore that was spent, as part of the solar power (grid), last year.

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The scheme offers 300 units of free electricity and, as The Hindu reported, households interested in availing the scheme’s benefits will have to pay a minimum of ₹20,000 depending on the power capacity of the installed system though this could be defrayed by a low-interest, collateral-free loan.

Only houses with a suitable roof and an existing connection to the grid will be eligible for the scheme and consumers will still have to pay for all the net power supplied and consumed via the grid.

Ms. Sitharaman said the scheme has so far generated a “remarkable response” with more than 1.28 crore registrations and 14 lakh applications.

The Minister underlined investment in constructing small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), a proposal India has been considering for a few years. “Nuclear energy is expected to form a very significant part of the energy mix for Viksit (developed) Bharat. Towards that pursuit, our government will partner with the private sector for setting up Bharat Small Reactors, research and development of Bharat Small Modular Reactor, and research and development of newer technologies for nuclear energy. The R&D funding announced in the interim budget will be made available for this sector,” she said.