The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved an outlay of ₹12,461 crore ($1.48 billion) to support the development of 31,350 megawatts of hydropower projects to be implemented over the next eight years.
According to the statement, the center okayed the Ministry of Power’s proposal to modify the budgetary support scheme to fund hydropower projects.
The statement said the government will implement the scheme from this financial year until March 2032.
The limit of the budgetary support for the cost of enabling infrastructure has been rationalized to ₹1 crore per MW for projects up to 200 MW capacity and ₹200 crore plus ₹0.75 crore per MW for projects above 200 MW capacity.
For exceptional cases, the limit of budgetary support may go up to ₹1.5 crore per MW, provided sufficient justification exists.
The statement said the scheme has a total outlay of ₹12,461 crore for cumulative generation capacity of about 31,350 MW to be implemented from fiscal years 2024-25 to 2031-32.
The scheme will apply to all hydropower projects with over 25 MW capacity, including private-sector projects allotted transparently.
It will also apply to all pumped storage projects, provided they have been allotted transparently.
The government will also support a cumulative PSP capacity of about 15,000 MW under the scheme.
The projects whose Letter of Award of the first significant package is issued up to June 30, 2028, would be considered under this scheme.
The statement added that the move would widen the ambit of the budgetary support for the cost of enabling infrastructure by including four more items apart from the construction of roads and bridges.
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