Piyush Goyal, India’s Minister of Coal, Power and Renewable Energy said, “Today our solar capacity is about 4,500 MW and the capacity addition target for this year is about 2,000 MW. During 2016-17, we are hoping to add 12,000 MW in the solar sector alone. Thus, including other renewable sources, there will be a total capacity addition of about 15,000 MW during next fiscal.” The government is focusing on speed, skill and scale rather than subsidies to drive reforms and progress in the energy sector, reports The Hindu.

The western state of Maharashtra is likely to be the first to waive value added tax, registration charges and road tax on electric vehicles, Goyal noted. He said that the government was keen on facilitating faster roll-out of electric vehicles across the states, and that government would partner with initiatives relating to such vehicles, hybrid technologies or bio-gas programs. “It could be a public-private partnership or initially seeded by the government and then subsequently it could become a business model. Also, power will no longer be an issue we have surplus coal and power in the country today,” he said.

According to Financial Times, the U.S.-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis which promotes green power has reported that companies and lenders from India, East Asia, and Europe have announced investments of over $100 billion collectively, and Tim Buckley, the director of the institute noted that “India was executing one of the most radical energy sector transformations ever undertaken.”