Parliamentary panel questions delays in approvals to solar park projects

A parliamentary committee has expressed disappointment at the slow progress of the development of solar parks in the country and pointed out that 11 out of the 50 proposed parks are yet to get approval from the ministry even as they are supposed to be commissioned by this year. The report also highlighted that the new and renewable energy ministry in its action-taken reply has said that it has granted approval for 50 solar parks of aggregate capacity of 33.80 GW as on December 31, 2021. The parliamentary standing committee on energy, headed by Janata Dal MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, in its report said, “The committee in their recommendation had noted that out of 50, 11 solar parks were yet to get approval of the ministry even after lapse of more than three years, thereby rendering the whole exercise of setting targets meaningless when ministry-level approvals took such an unduly long time.” The committee was “disappointed with the slow progress made as the ministry had been able to fully develop only eight solar parks in more than 5 years ”, the report, presented in Parliament on Tuesday, said. The report further noted: “The ministry has neither furnished the reasons for delay in according approval to 11 solar parks at the first place, nor it has given any explanation regarding reduction in target at the level of approval itself.” The latest parliamentary report on renewable energy further pointed out that only nine Central Public Sector Undertakings had participated in 1000 MW CPSUs Scheme and only seven CPSUs/government organisations had participated in Phase-II of the Scheme. Asking the ministry to take pro-active steps to encourage more public sector firms to create solar parks, the report said: “The ministry has just provided the 14 updated data regarding participation of CPSUs in Phase-II of the Scheme, and no information about the steps taken by the Ministry to encourage more CPSUs to participate.”