The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, in a path breaking reform, has approved monetisation of assets of POWERGRID, a  Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under Ministry of Power, through Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) model. This is the first time any PSU in Power Sector will undertake asset recycling by monetising its assets through theInvITmodel and using the proceeds to fund the new and under-construction capital projects.

This approval would help POWERGRID to monetise in the first lot, assets with gross block value of more than 7000 crore. These assets, which are mainly High Voltage Transmission lines and substations, are held by POWERGRID in form of Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs). The proceeds from the asset monetization would be deployedby POWERGRID in their new and under-construction projects.

Background

POWERGRID, a public limited company under the administrative control of the Ministry of Power, Government of India, started its commercial operation in the year 1992-93 and is today, a Maharatna company, engaged in the business of power transmission. The Company, along with its wholly owned subsidiaries acquired through the Tariff Based Competitive Bidding (TBCB)process,owns and operates a pan India transmission network. The Company meets its fund requirement for its Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) through its internal accruals and debt.

The Budget 2019-20 emphasized investment led growth and indicated that new and innovative financial instruments including Infrastructure Investment Trusts (lnvITs), have been launched as part of the brown field asset monetization strategy for augmenting infrastructure investment.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has accorded approval to the POWERGRID to monetise transmission assets held in SPVs through InvIT model. The asset monetisation through InvIT by POWERGRID is a first for the Power Sector PSU.The proceeds from the asset monetization would be utilized by POWERGRID for its CAPEX and the premium generated would augment the net worth of POWERGRID.

In the first block, POWERGRID would monetize assets with gross block of more than Rs7000 crore. Based on the experience gained, further monetization shall be carried out in future.

Asset recycling is a key strategy of the Government of India to release the capital invested in operational assets and the proposed InvIT of POWERGRID would attract both domestic as well as global investors including Sovereign Wealth Funds. Sale of assets to InvITs is a way of accessing long term, relatively cheap finance required to fund infrastructure projects in Transmission Sector. The CAPEX plan of POWERGRID for next two years (2020-21 and 2021-22) is Rs. 20,500 cr. The Government of India has enacted an enabling regulatory and taxation framework for InvITs and the proposed InvIT by POWERGRID would deepen this market.

The InvIT would provide an opportunity to the general public and institutional investors such as Pension Funds, Mutual Funds, to benefit from this investment opportunity and participate in the growth of Indian Infrastructure Sector.

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in a message at the inaugural session of First World Solar Technology Summit read out by Shri R.K. Singh, the President, International Solar Alliance (ISA) Assembly and Minister of State (I/C) for Power and New & Renewable Energy, said, today, that technology holds the key to scale up the use of solar energy. Technological achievements have already brought about a significant reduction in the price of solar power. A further reduction in the cost will provide a major boost to the use and expansion of renewable energy. He expressed confidence that the summit will help in help in developing new technologies and ensure that they become available to all.

World Solar Technology Summit (WSTS) organised by ISA and FICCI today aims to bring together key stakeholders – leading academic scientists, technology developers, researchers and innovators to present and discuss the recent highlights of solar technologies, cost-wise; technology-wise, technology transfers, challenges and concerns in the field. The main objective of WSTS is to showcase to member countries the state of the art and next-generation solar technologies worldwide and to give an opportunity to decision-makers and stakeholders to meet, and discuss their own priorities and strategic agenda towards a larger integration.

Prime Minister re-iterated that Five years ago, world leaders had taken a pledge to restrict the rise in global temperature through a gradual reduction in the dependence on fossil fuels. Underlining India’s commitment lowering carbon footprints, he stressed that India has lowest per-capita carbon emissions in the world but we have still pressed ahead with deployment of renewable energy at a frenetic pace.”

Speaking on fast growth of Renewables in India, he further informed that India has enhanced its installed renewable capacity by 2.5 times and increased our solar installed capacity by more than 13 times. “Globally India now ranks 4th in terms of Renewable power,” Shri Modi said.

Prime Minister also informed that we have scaled our non-fossil fuel-based power generations to 134GW, which is about 35 % of our total power generation. We are confident of increasing it to 220 GW by 2022. “We want to take renewable energy to every village of our country. Our government has implemented a scheme named KUSUM that aims to replace the use of diesel in our farm sector with solar energy. Under this scheme, we have targeted the solarisation of 2.8 million irrigation pumps. Such schemes will not only benefit the environment, but also increase the income of our farmers.” he said.

Referring to India’s support to ISA member countries the Prime Minister said ”India is providing capacity building support to ISA member countries 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.” He said that in 2018, our Government had announced about US $1.4 Billion worth of lines of credit (LOCs) for covering 27 solar projects across 15 countries. These projects are in various stages of implementation.

The Prime Minister also said, “The ISA is a part of “One Word One Sun One Grid” project, I firmly believe that this project can bring transformational benefits for the entire humanity.

Ministers from several of ISA’s member countries will be joined by high-Level dignitaries, National Focal Points and senior government functionaries; Representatives of  diplomatic missions, ISA Partners, business and industry leaders, solar project developers, solar manufacturers, R&D institutions, academia and think tanks, civil society, international organizations and donors, representatives of non-governmental and community-based organizations, academics, research and training institutes, international media, multilateral and bilateral agencies.

Nobel Laureate, Dr M Stanley Whittingham, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (jointly with John B Goodenough & Akira Yoshino) in 2019 for the revolutionizing discovery of the lithium ion batteries and Mr Bernard Piccard, Founder and Chairman of Solar Impulse Foundation, Switzerland also joined the summit virtually.

India’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mr Dharmendra Pradhan also addressed the inaugural.Shri Pradhan announced that five Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) under Petroleum & Natural Gas Ministry will be joining International Solar Alliance (ISA)’s Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action (ISA-CSCA) as Corporate Partners. He said that Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and GAIL (India) Limited will be contributing to ISA’s Corpus Fund.

Lauding the role of the ISA for making rapid strides since its launch at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris on 30 November 2015 by Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the then French President, Shri Pradhan said that as the latest inter-governmental international organization with its headquarters in India, ISA is not only a testament to India’s unwavering faith in multilateralism but also a commitment to a better, sustainable and greener future. He said that the Alliance reflects the vision and the firm belief that the beneficence of the Sun could be used to bring together the peoples of this planet for a shared solution to our energy needs.

The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is a treaty-based international intergovernmental organization. ISA was jointly launched by India and France in the presence of Secretary General of the UN during CoP21. The Paris Declaration establishes ISA as an alliance dedicated to the promotion of solar energy among its Member Countries. The major objectives of the organization include deployment of 1000 GW of solar capacity and mobilization of US$ 1000 billion of investment in solar energy sector by 2030. As an action-oriented organization, ISA intends to bring together member countries to aggregate demand and realise economies of scale, resulting in reduction of costs of solar applications, facilitating deployment of existing solar technologies at scale, and promoting collaborative solar R&D and capacity. As on June 26 2020, the ISA Framework Agreement has been signed by 86 countries, with 68 having also deposited instruments of ratification. The ISA is headquartered at Gurugram in Haryana, India. Mr. UpendraTripathy is the Director General.

India is one of the few countries that have reported very high numbers of daily testing. The daily testing capacity has crossed 11.70 lakh.

India’s cumulative tests are nearly 5 crore (4,95,51,507) as on date. 7,20,362 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours.

As a result of the country-wide ramped up testing, 1,33,33,904 tests were conducted in the last two weeks alone.

The Centre’s policies are continuously evolving in the larger global context. Following on the heels of several measures to facilitate wider testing by the people, recently the Union Government has issued the revised and updated Advisory which provides for the first time ‘Testing on Demand”. The States/UTs have also been given wider flexibilities to simplify modalities to enable higher levels of testing.

The daily testing average had been on a continuous upward incline from around 7 lakh tests being conducted per day in the 3^rd week of August to 10 lakh tests per day in the 1^st week of September.

Higher testing enables early identification of confirmed cases, which in turn leads to timely initiation of effective treatment in supervised home/facility isolation or in hospitals.  These measures aid faster and higher numbers of recovery, lower fatality and saving of more lives.

For all authentic & updated information on COVID-19 related technical issues, guidelines &advisories please regularly visit: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/ and @MoHFW_INDIA.

Technical queries related to COVID-19 may be sent to technicalquery.covid19@gov.in and other queries on ncov2019@gov.in and @CovidIndiaSeva .

In case of any queries on COVID-19, please call at the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare helpline no.: +91-11-23978046 or 1075 (Toll-free). List of helpline numbers of States/UTs on COVID-19 

“The plentiful and spread of southwest monsoon this year should help farmers and the output must be very good. It will also help Indian economy, though exact quantification cannot be made at this moment. We don’t have an assessment as to how it will impact the economy.” The country as a whole has so far received 7 percent excess rainfall.

This was stated by Dr. M Rajeevan, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences.

Dr. M. Mohapatra, Director General of the IMD, said that the country is likely to see normal to above normal rainfall in September, though in the second week of September, monsoon rain is likely to be deficient in most parts of the country, including northwest and central India. But it is likely to resume after September 17, he added. The usual date for monsoon to begin withdrawing is September 17.

Dr. M. Rajeevan and Dr. Mohapatra were addressing a virtual press conference here today.

 Dr M Mohapatra pointed out that the IMD in its weekly weather update mentioned that withdrawal of monsoon may begin from western parts of Rajasthan in the week ending September 18. But we are also expecting a low-pressure area to develop over west central Bay of Bengal around that time. He said, adding that while withdrawal of monsoon may begin, but we are still studying as to when it’s likely to completely withdraw. We are expecting normal to above normal rain in Kerala, Karnataka and coastal areas of Maharashtra around and after September 17, he said. In other words, though the rainfall activity has declined in September as compared to August and is now below normal, rains will revive in the next few days as fresh weather systems are developing, he said.

Dr. Mohapatra elaborated that variability of monsoon rain this season was higher this year, with excess rain in June, a deficit in July and again excessive rainfall in August.  He said active Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO), the largest element of the intraseasonal (30- to 90-day) variability in the tropical atmosphere, and cold El Nino neutral conditions also favoured good rain in August.

He noted that the IMD’s accuracy in forecasting heavy rainfall has improved to over 80 %. Both Dr. Rajeevan and Dr. Mohapatra also pointed out that the IMD has very accurately predicted the behaviour of Super Cyclone Amphan well in advance and helped save human lives and property. However, they admitted that East and West coast cyclones are different weather patterns and tracking them minutely sometimes differ from the forecast. Though the cyclone Nisarga was also well tracked and predicted from a low pressure area to its peak, there was some difference about its landfall.

Dr. Mohapatra pointed out that among some new initiatives by the IMD also include its “Weekly Video weather forecast” (In English and Hindi) and weather apps– *Mausam App*, *Meghdoot App*and *Damini App*, which he said are very useful for people.

On the impact of climate change on the behaviour of Indian monsoon, Dr. Rajeevan said that it does have its affect and the IMD has done a lot of work on it. But these impacts vary from time to time and there is no uniformity about it, he said.

The Secretary, MoES also gave details about IMD’s efforts in installation of new and more radars across the country to gather more data and be able to make forecasts on various weather phenomena in near future.

Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said today that Indian Merchants’ Chamber (IMC) role is crucial to post-COVID economy and for realising the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Mission of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Addressing, online, the 114th Foundation Day ceremony of IMC Chamber of Commerce of Industry as chief guest, Dr Jitendra Singh recalled his long association with the Indian Merchants’ Chamber and his frequent visits to their Head Office at Churchgate, Mumbai. He said, being the oldest Chamber of Commerce in the country, of which Mahatma Gandhi was also a member, IMC has a glorious past and a great legacy, with equally high expectations from it for the future.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, self-reliant India is key to the concept of Atma Nirbhar Bharat and reputed business organizations like the IMC are expected to take a call. He said, in the post-COVID scenario, when the whole world is trying to rise to the occasion, for India it is both a challenge as well as an opportunity. Esteem of using what is available locally and the urge to create or produce what is not available locally, is the essence of “Local for Vocal”, said Dr Jitendra Singh.

The President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind inaugurated a virtual Conference of Governors on ‘Role of National Education Policy 2020 in Transforming Higher Education’ in New Delhi today.The Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi addressed the inaugural session of the  conference, which was attended by Union Education Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, MoS for Education Shri Sanjay Dhotre, Governors, Lieutenant Governors/ Administrators of states and also some Sate Chief Ministers and Education Ministers .

Addressing the Conference, the President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind said that National Education Policy (NEP) will take the country, especially the youth forward in accordance with the needs and aspirations of the twenty-first century. Congratulating the Prime Minister for his visionary leadership and inspiring role in shaping this historical document, he also appreciated Dr. Kasturirangan and Ministers as well as the officials of Education Ministry for giving shape to National Education Policy through an elaborate process which took into consideration more than two lakh suggestions received from 2.5 lakh gram panchayats, more than 12,500 local bodies and about 675 districts. If changes are effectively brought about, India will emerge as an education superpower, he added.

The Sports Authority of India regional center in Mumbai organised an online interaction with Table Tennis player Madhurika Patkar on Monday. The paddler, who won the Arjuna Awards in 2020, at the virtual National Sports Awards last month, spoke on the importance of the ongoing Fit India Freedom Run.

Organised by the Sports Ministry, it is the largest country-wideRun that was launched on August 14 by the Union Minister of Sports & Youth Affairs Shri Kiren Rijiju. The run, to go on till October 2, has been lapped up by sportspersons and non-sportspersons from all spheres and seen major reception.

“This is a step towards making our country fitter. We all can participate to make India a fit country. We all have been confined to our home during the lockdown but now that we can step out gradually, it’s a great time to get connected with running. It is a basic exercise. I thank the Sports Ministry, and especially our Hon’ble Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju for starting the Fit India Freedom Run during this period. I want to appeal to everyone to participate in the Fit India Freedom Run,” Madhurika said.

The 33-year-old also added that running in a group brings great benefits. “When I go outdoors for runs, I feel attuned to nature and it is a very enriching experience for me. First, we need to begin with ourselves and then we can inspire others to get involved. We have to invite our friends even if they are reluctant. Once one starts running, they will start loving it. When we have a group, the exercise feels more enjoyable,” she added.

Susmita R Jyotsi, the Regional Director of SAI center in Mumbai, lauded the fitness mantra given by Madhurika and mentioned we should always motivate others four-fold.

“Madhurika, your words are very motivating. Looking at you, many will get inspired. In this current scenario, fitness is the only way to stay fit and fight the pandemic. Athletes are our national icons and each should motivate four others to join this unique run. That will be a great achievement. If 100 people are inspired, they should inspire 400 more,” said RD, SAI Mumbai.