Germany provides 200 mn euro for India's Energy Efficiency Programme

India and Germany on Friday inked an over 200 million euro (Rs 1,400 crore) loan agreement, taking the total German commitment for better energy efficiency in India to 600 million euro (Rs 4,200 crore), a statement said.

The agreement, inked at the German Embassy in the presence of German Ambassador Martin Ney, was between the German Development Bank (KfW) on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), under the Ministry of Power.

The agreement was signed by Selva Kumar, Joint Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, Saurabh Kumar, Managing Director of EESL, Norbert Kloppenburg, member of the Executive Board of KfW, and Roland Siller, member of the Management Committee of KfW, said a German embassy statement.

With this programme, the Indo-German development cooperation addresses mutual interests of mitigating global warming and bringing together the expertise of highly committed institutions on both sides, it said.

Additionally, a financing agreement of EUR 500,000 (Rs 3.5 crore) was signed with Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA). IREDA will use these funds to assure the quality of solar PV projects and to mitigate the challenges faced in solar rooftop PV projects by establishing an implementation structure. These grant funds will also be used to support IREDA in market assessments concerning future trends in solar PV, it said.

Germany supports affordable housing in India with $274 million.

On Thursday, the State Bank of India and the German Development Bank (KfW) on a special mandate from the German government concluded a $274 million (Rs 1,796 crore) loan facility to support lending for affordable housing in India.

Siddhartha Sengupta, Deputy Managing Director, signed on behalf of SBI, while KfW was represented by Norbert Kloppenburg, Member of the Executive Board, and Roland Siller, Member of the Management Committee of KfW Development Bank.

With its focus on housing loans for economically weaker sections (EWS) and lower income group (LIG) households, the facility is designed to complement the Indian government's flagship affordable housing programme, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

Lower income households account for 95 per cent of the shortage of an estimated 20 million housing units in the country, it said.

--IANS

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