India proposes to launch a $1-billion equity fund, with seed capital from public sector units, to support renewable energy companies.

Addressing a ‘Talkathon’ ahead of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference or COP-21, Piyush Goyal Minister of State (Independent Charge) Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy, said, “While we hope the Paris talks will help developed countries provide long-tenor low-cost funding, we are also preparing ourselves to see how we can finance our renewable energy thrust.”

“We hope to launch a $1-billion private equity fund where the government companies will seed the initial capital and then at a later date we will look at foreign capital to pool with it to provide equity support to companies which want to come and invest in India’s renewable energy sector,” Goyal said to a question from Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

Goyal and Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar, were taking questions from the public which were being asked on the micro-blogging social network Twitter. Apart from the private equity fund, Goyal also said that the country expects to collect $4 billion a year in the next three-four years for the National Clean Energy Fund through a cess on coal mining. Since the Narendra Modi-led Government took charge last year, clean cess on coal mining has been quadrupled to ₹200 a tonne.

Asked about the International Solar Alliance, Goyal said it will be launched on November 30 by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande.

The Minister said that the purpose of the International Solar Alliance is to forge a partnership in countries blessed with abundant sunshine.

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