Solar water heating scheme garner good response, Govt

New Delhi, Apr 26 (UNI) The government today said that the new scheme launched by the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources to accelerate development and deployment of solar water heating systemsin the country has registered encouraging response.

So far 19 banks and Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) recognized by Reserve Bank of India has joined the scheme to provide soft loans to the beneficiaries in domestic, institutional and commercial sectors which is quite more than only 7 public sector banks who participated in the earlier scheme.

This was revealed at a meeting chaired by , Secretary, Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources, V. Subramanium here to review the new scheme to implement ''Accelerated Programme On Solar Water Heating (APSWH)'' was approved in August, 2005.

Mr Subramaniam emphasised that participating banks and institutions should approach the scheme on its merit by convincing the potential customers about the benefits of the scheme.

The Secretary said that 11 States have accepted the recommendations of the Ministry in amending by building bye-laws making use of solar water heaters mandatory. In fact, Municipal Corporations of Bangalore, Thane, Nagpur, Rajkot and Pune have already notified amended building bye-laws.

He informed that Thane Municipal Corporation have introduced an incentive of 10 per cent rebate on property tax in such cases. The Secretary further asked the representatives of banks/NBFCs and State Nodal Agencies to carry out a information campaign at the branch/grassroots level explaining the benefits of the scheme. He suggested that each participating branch should also display information about manufacturers/service providers with complete address, Telephone numbers and the contact persons.

Under the new scheme, soft loans are available to the users at reduced interest rates of 2 per cent for domestic, 3 per cent for institutions and 5 per cent for commercial users. The scheme is open for all public/private sector banks apart from RBI approved NBFCs and scheduled cooperative banks. It provides a flexibility of loan repayment period to be decided by the users (up to 5 years maximum) against earlier fixed term of 5 years.

There is provision for incentives to motivators at the rate of Rs.100 per square meter collector area. It is estimated that a 100 liter per day system in a home can bring savings of up to 1500 units of electricity and in the industrial sector the saving could be around 120 liter of diesel per year. Over all, 1 million such systems installed in homes can result in peak saving of 1000 MW besides saving 1.5 billion units of electricity per year.

The banks who are participating in the scheme include Canara Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Punjab National Bank, Syndicate Bank, Union Bank of India, Andhra Bank, Vijya Bank, Dena Bank besides some NBFCs and Cooperative Banks. The new scheme aims installing solar water heating systems at one million square meter of collector area during its two years i.e. 2005-06 and 2006-07 of which about 4 lakh square meter has been achieved and another 6 lakh square meter is likely to be achieved during 2006-07. In all 15 lakh square meter of collector area has been achieved in the country so far.

UNI/RT MP VC1901