The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has approved/sanctioned 60 Cities including 13 Pilot and 5 Model Cities to transform them into solar cities under its scheme “Development of Solar Cities”. In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today , Minister of State (IC) for Power & New and Renewable Energy, R K Singh informed that the master plans of 49 Solar Cities have been prepared. The Stake-holders Committees have been constituted in 21 Cities and Solar City Cells have been created in 37 Solar Cities. Solar PV projects with aggregate capacity of 8069.16 kWP and Solar Water Heating System with aggregate capacity of 7894 meter square collector area have been sanctioned under the programme. While Rs. 101.64 crore has been sanctioned, Rs. 25.92 crore has been released under scheme “Development of Solar Cities” so far.
Further, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has accorded sanction for preparation of Master Plan for development of 52 Green Campus up to 12th Five year Plan period. The Ministry provides Central Financial support up to Rs.5 lakh for preparing Master Plan for development of green campus in the educational institutions, office complexes, residential and commercial complexes etc. An amount of Rs.2.59 crore has been sanctioned and an amount of Rs.1.02 crore has been released up to 31st January, 2018 for this purpose.