Cleantech, for an inclusive green future in India

Syllabus:  Green economy

India’s experience has shown that climate action is only effective and embraced at scale if it aligns with the development aspirations of millions and contributes to economic growth.

  • The green economy paradigm provides an optimistic pathway to align development and environmental outcomes.
  • Example:
    • building a solar park or an electric vehicle charging station expands infrastructure while furthering climate action.
    • Reviving millets helps improve farm incomes while making our agriculture climate resilient.

Initiatives in the hinterlands

  • Various initiatives to spread green economy approach to the hinterlands of India by enabling access to cleantech solutions for livelihoods among the rural population.
    • solar dryers converting throwaway tomatoes into sun-dried ones in Andhra Pradesh
    • biomass-powered cold storages in Maharashtra
    • solar silk reeling machines instead of thigh-reelers in Odisha

Advantages of cleantech solutions

  • powered by renewable energy
  • help India reduce its diesel imports
  • avoid the loss of perishable food
  • enhance rural livelihood opportunities
  • an investment opportunity worth $50 billion for investors and financiers.

Steps to scale up

  1. leverage existing government programmes supporting livelihoods such as the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises (PM-FME) scheme, Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana and the proper utilization of Agriculture Infrastructure Fund.
  1. enable large-scale financing of cleantech solutions.
    1. It requires supporting bankers’ capacity on credit assessment
    2. We also need to hedge their risks in the initial stages of the market through partial guarantees.
    3. Active engagement with financiers is important to structure loan products that are aligned with the cash flow scenarios of users.
  2. enable multi-actor partnerships between technology innovators, manufacturers, distributors and service providers, financiers, and market-linkage players to enable an overall ecosystem.
    1. Challenges include low product awareness, high customer acquisition cost as users need to touch and feel these products before adoption, and low density of customers for such products in a given area. Users too, at times, struggle with limited after-sales service and market linkage of the final processed products.

India has massive ambitions for a clean and green future. Cleantech can deliver on development and climate action in the country’s rural areas.

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