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Current Affairs © www.upscportal.com NOTE "All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior pemission of the publisher." I National Issues 1. Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, also known as simply National Solar Mission, is a major initiative of the Government of India and State Governments to promote ecologically sustainable growth while addressing India’s energy security challenge. It will also constitute a major contribution by India to the global effort to meet the challenges of climate change. This is one of the several initiatives that are part of National Action Plan on Climate Change. The program was officially inauguratedby Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh. Goals : The objective of the National Solar Mission is to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, by creating the policy conditions for its diffusion across the country as quickly as possible. The immediate aim of the Mission is to focus on setting up an enabling environment for solar technology penetration in the country both at a centralized and decentralized level. The first phase (up to 2013) will focus on capturing of the low hanging options in solar thermal; on promoting off-grid systems to serve populations without access to commercial energy and modest capacity addition in grid-based systems. In the second phase, after taking into account the experience of the initial years, capacity will be aggressively ramped up to create conditions for up scaled and competitive solar energy penetration in the country. Timeline : The Mission will adopt a 3-phase approach, spanning the remaining WWW.UPSCPORTAL.COM 7 Order Current Affairs Books http://upscportal.com/civilservices/order-online/current-affairs-books Current Affairs © www.upscportal.com period of the 11th Plan and first year of the 12th Plan (up to 2012-13) as Phase 1, the remaining 4 years of the 12th Plan (2013–17) as Phase 2 and the 13th Plan (2017–22) as Phase 3. At the end of each plan, and mid-term during the 12th and 13th Plans, there will be an evaluation of progress, review of capacity and targets for subsequent phases, based on emerging cost and technology trends, both domestic and global. The aim would be to protect Government from subsidy exposure in case expected cost reduction does not materialize or is more rapid than expected. Phase 1 : The first phase of this mission aims to commission 1000MW of grid connected solar power project by 2013. The implementation of this phase is in hands of a subsidiary of National Thermal Power Corporation, the largest power producer in India. The subsidiary, NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd (NVVN), will lay out guidelines for selection of developers for commissioning grid connected solar power projects in India. While NVVN is the public face of this phase, several other departments and ministries will play a significant role in formulating guidelines. NVVN will sign power purchase agreements with the developers. Since NVVN is not a utility, it will sell purchased power to different state utilities via separate agreements. Tariff : Tariff for solar power projects, like any other power projects, are determined based on guidelines issued by Central Electricity Regulation Commission of India (CERC). Technologies : For Phase 1 projects, NVVN proposed for 50:50 allocation towards Solar PV and Solar thermal. The latter is quite ambitious given India has no operational Solar Thermal projects and less than 10MW of Solar PV projects. While growing at a rapid pace lately, solar thermal technologies are still evolving globally. A growing solar PV industry is India is hoping to take off by supplying equipment to power project developers. World’s well known equipment manufacturers started increasing their presence in India and are sure to give a stiff competition to local Indian manufacturers. Due to generally high temperatures in India, crystalline silicon based products are not the most ideal ones. Thin film technologies like amorphous silicon, CIGS and CDTE could be more suitable for higher temperature situations. Solar thermal technology providers barely have a foothold in India. Few technology providers like Abengoa have some Indian presence in anticipation of demand from this mission. Many global players are gliding around and taking a wait and see approach via joint ventures with local Indian partners. Domestic Content Controversy : Initial guidelines for the solar mission mandated cells and modules for solar PV projects to be manufactured in India. That accounts to over 60% of total system costs. For solar thermal, guidelines mandated 30% project to have domestic content. A rigorous controversy emerged between power project developers and solar PV equipment manufacturers. The former camp prefers to source modules by accessing highly competitive global market to attain flexible pricing, better quality, predictable delivery and use of latest technologies. The latter camp prefers controlled / planned environment to force developers to purchase modules from a small, albeit growing, group of module manufacturers in India. Manufacturers want to avoid competition with global players and are lobbying the government to incentivize growth of local industry. 8 WWW.UPSCPORTAL.COM Order Current Affairs Books http://upscportal.com/civilservices/order-online/current-affairs-books © www.upscportal.com Current Affairs 2. National Mission on Enhanced Energy The Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change approved “in principle” the National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency. The Mission will enable about Rs. 75,000 crore worth transactions in energy efficiency. In doing so, it will, by 2015, help save about five per cent of our annual energy consumption. The Mission is the second of the eight missions under India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change to be approved by the Council. In his opening remarks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said “our success in reducing the energy intensity of our growth will also reduce the carbon intensity of our growth. This will have a beneficial impact on our emissions trajectory. The implementation of this Mission will also be a powerful signal to the international community that we are willing to contribute in a significant manner, to meeting the global challenge of climate change.” Dr. Singh also emphasised “it must also have inbuilt provisions for monitoring and evaluation so as to ensure transparency, accountability and responsiveness.” The most innovative and challenging new initiative to be introduced under the Mission is the “Perform, Achieve and Trade” (PAT) mechanism which will assign energy efficiency improvement targets to the country’s most energy intensive industrial units, with the provision of allowing them to retain any energy efficiency improvements in excess of their target in the form of Energy Savings Certificates, called ESCerts. Units will also be allowed to use purchase ESCerts to meet their targets. Other Mission initiatives include expanded use of the carbon market to help achieve market transformation towards more energy efficient equipment and appliances, and the creation of two funds to help channel investment into energy efficiency projects. One of the funds, the Partial Risk Guaranty Facility, will provide back-to-back guarantees to banks for loans to energy efficiency projects so as to reduce the perceived risks of these projects. The other fund, a Venture Capital Fund, will support investment in the manufacturing of energy efficient products and provision of energy efficiency services. Another major goal of the Mission is the promotion of Energy Service Company (ESCO) based upgrades to energy efficiency in buildings, municipalities and agricultural pumpsets. Through this business model, ESCOs invest in energy efficiency investments, and are paid over several years from the resulting energy savings. Union Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said: “We have already initiated a pilot ESCO project in the agricultural sector in Solapur district in Maharashtra.” (The Power Ministry is coordinating this Mission.) He said energy savings from the replacement of inefficient pumpsets by BEE 5-star labelled pumpsets would not only pay the ESCO for the investment in pumpsets, but would also reduce the subsidy bill of the State government. 3. Caste Census Caste based enumeration of the population has not been carried out in India since 1931. In the last 70 years, some caste names have changed, quite a few new ones have emerged, several castes have merged with others or have moved up or down the social hie rarchy, and many have become politically active. Arguments against caste based census : Caste being a sensitive issue, the proposition of caste-based census naturally provoked serious debate. Social scientists such as Marc Galanter have argued that the census recording of social WWW.UPSCPORTAL.COM 9 Order Current Affairs Books http://upscportal.com/civilservices/order-online/current-affairs-books Current Affairs © www.upscportal.com precedence is a device of colonial domination, designed to undermine as well as to disprove Indian nationhood. They contend that even assuming that caste data are relevant, enumeration of the population on the basis of caste is bound to be vitiated by vote-bank and reservation politics, leading to the inflation of population figures and the suppression or distortion of vital information on employment, education and economic status, among other things Arguments