Pointing out that India ranks fourth globally in terms of renewable energy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that the country has increased its installed capacity in this sector by 2.5 times and the installed solar capacity by more than 13 times.

India has scaled its non-fossil fuel-based power generation to 134 GW, which is about 35 percent of the country’s total power generation, Mr Modi said in a message read out at the inaugural session of First World Solar Technology Summit by Union Power Minister Raj Kumar Singh. “We are confident of increasing it to 220 GW by 2022,” the Prime Minister said. Mr Singh is the President of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) Assembly.

Referring to India’s support to ISA member-countries, Mr Modi said: “India is providing capacity-building support to ISA members through its ITEC training programme. We have also set up a Project Preparation Facility to develop bankable solar energy projects in ISA member-countries with the help of EXIM Bank of India.”

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan also addressed the inaugural session. He announced that five Public Sector Undertakings under his Ministry will join ISA’s Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action (ISA-CSCA) as corporate partners.

He said that the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, and GAIL (India) Limited will contribute to ISA Corpus Fund.