Five PSUs of India to join International Solar Alliance Coalition

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced, during the inaugural speech at the first World Solar Technology Summit held on September 8, 2020, that five Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) will join the International Solar Alliance (ISA) Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action by contributing to the corpus fund of ISA.

Key Points

• The PSUs which are going to join the coalition are,

1. Indian Oil Corporation Limited,
2. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited,
3. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited,
4. Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and
5. GAIL India Limited.

• These PSUs now require to focus on clean energy transition.
• They will deploy solar panels to take the initiative further.

Significance

• It is going to help India to reduce Green House Gas emissions by,
  1. Reducing the emissions to one-third in comparison to that of 2005 levels.
  2. Achieving 40% of installed capacity for electricity from non-fossil fuels.
  3. Creating additional carbon reduction by increasing forest cover.
• The move of India abides by Paris Climate Change meeting (COP 21) that was held in 2015.

Solar Capacity of India

The installed solar capacity of India currently stands at 270 MW. Government have planned to make an addition of 60 MW in next few years. The Government also targets to solarise 50% of fuel stations owned by PSUs within 5 years.

Public Sector Undertaking (PSU)

Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) is a state-owned enterprise in India. These are owned either by the union government of India or the state government or the territorial governments. For a company to be categorised under PSU, their stock needs to be owned majorly by the government. The Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises heads the PSUs.

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2020