India to get $ 45.5 mn to modernise power plants

New Delhi, Jan 23: The Global Environment Facility (GEF), a UN agency, will give India a grant of 45.5 million dollars to help it launch the first of its kind 'Coal Fired Generation Rehabilitation' power project which helps in reducing green house gas emissions responsible for global warming.

Announcing the grant at a press conference here today, new CEO and chairperson of GEF Monique Barbut said after rehabilitation, coal fired plants will operate with more efficiency and increased output.

Underlining that climate change caused by global warming was becoming the most challenging issue for all the countries, Ms Barbut said the GEF will work with counterparts in India other large developing countries to develop an implementable clean energy framework, and the grant by the UN body for rehabilitation of coal fired power plants was an important step in that direction.

Nearly half of such plants generating 65,000 megawatts of electricity in the country are in an urgent need of rehabilitation.

The project will utilise GEF grant in conjunction with World Bank loans and Indian financing amounting to an additional USD 299.7 million.

The GEF estbalished in 1991 helps developing countries fund projects and programmes that protect the global environment. It supports projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, ozone layer and persistent organic pollutants.

Ms Barbut said GEF will be giving India 30 million dollars for biodiversity and 40 million dollars for climate change projects in the next four years.

The GEF CEO said the agency was helping the country in 23 projects at present, and its emphasis was on low carbon emitting technologies and adaptation to the impending climate change. She said the coalfired generation plant approved by GEF was very important for countries like India who have large targets to reduce their carbon emissions.

It was for the first time that the agnecy was doing such a project in India, said Ms Barbut.

The GEF grant of of 45.4 million dollars will finance upgrading of selected old plants and set in place a process that will see that the reminder of the older, coal-fired plants were also rehabilitated and improved.

Mr Alok Kumar, Director in the Ministry of Power in his remarks said India will continue to depend on coal as a source of electricity generation for a long period, so the country's energy policy lays special emphasis on improving efficiency of its thermal power plants.

India has been getting GEF grant based on the 'Resource Allocation Framework' (RAF), a formula developed by the agency in consultation with its 177 member countries under which resources are allocated to countries based on each one's potential to generate global environmental benefits and its capacity, policies and practices to successfully implement GEF policies.

UNI