As a part of the Union Budget 2024-25, the finance minister announced key measures to achieve net-zero by 2070.
Key Announcements
- Towards meeting the commitment for ‘net-zero’ by 2070, the union budget 2024-25 has announced the following measures:
– Viability gap funding will be provided for harnessing offshore wind energy potential for initial capacity of 1 GW.
– Coal gasification and liquefaction capacity of 100 MT will be set up by 2030. This will also help in reducing imports of natural gas, methanol, and ammonia.
- In the EV space, the government will expand and strengthen the e-vehicle ecosystem by supporting manufacturing and charging infrastructure. Greater adoption of e-buses for public transport networks will be encouraged through payment security mechanism.
- Through rooftop solarization, 10 million households will be enabled to obtain up to 300 units free electricity every month. This is expected to yield savings of up to Rs 15,000 to Rs 18,000 annually for households from free solar electricity and
- selling of the surplus power to the distribution companies.
- A corpus of Rs 1 trillion will be established with 50 year interest free loan. The corpus will provide long-term financing or refinancing with long tenors and low or nil interest rates. This will encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation significantly in sunrise domains. We need to have programmes that combine the powers of our youth and technology.
Budgetary Allocation
- For 2024-25, the net budgetary allocation for the Ministry of Power has been pegged at Rs 205.02 billion (as against Rs 206.71billion budgeted in 2023-24). The total investment by its eight state-owned power companies has been proposed at Rs 672.86 billion for 2024-25 (as against Rs 608.05 billion budgeted in 2023-24).
- The net budgetary allocation for the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has been pegged at Rs 128.50 billion for 2024-25 (as against Rs 102.22 billion budgeted in 2023-24).