Context: 

On Independence Day of this year, the Indian Prime Minister said that India is showing the world how to combat climate change. 

• India’s experience has shown that climate action is only effective and adaptable at large if it aligns with the development aspirations of millions and contributes to economic growth.

About the Green Economy:

• The Green Economy Paradigm: It provides a pathway to balance development and environmental outcomes. 
  • Examples: 
    • Building a solar park or an electric vehicle charging station helps expand the much-needed infrastructure in a developing economy while furthering climate action. 
    • Reviving millets helps improve farm incomes in rain-fed areas while making agriculture climate resilient. 
• Initiatives taken in the hinterlands to enable access to cleantech solutions for livelihoods among the rural population. 
  • Example: Solar dryers converting throwaway tomatoes into sun-dried ones in Andhra Pradesh, biomass-powered cold storages helping farmers in Maharashtra selling lemons, etc., are some of the examples of cleantech solutions that are already contributing to the jobs and incomes of rural women and men.

Significance of the Cleantech Solutions: Research at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) shows that just 12 such cleantech solutions have the potential to impact about 16% of the rural population.

• Cleantech solutions that are powered by renewable energy can help India: 
  • To reduce its diesel imports
  • Avoid the loss of perishable food 
  • Enhance rural livelihood opportunities 
  • An investment opportunity worth $50 billion for investors and financiers

Challenges faced by the Cleantech Solutions:

• Low product awareness
• High customer acquisition cost as users need to touch and feel these products before adoption
• Low density of customers for such products 
• Users also struggle with limited after-sales service and market linkage of the final processed products

The Path Ahead:

• Needs a structural boost
• Leverage existing government programmes supporting livelihoods. 
  • The Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana can be used to enable the adoption of cleantech solutions. 
  • The Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises (PM-FME) scheme can be used to promote solar dryers, an energy-efficient multipurpose food processor or a solar grain mill.
  • The Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana can be leveraged towards adopting solar refrigerators and dryers for fishing communities. 
  • The Agriculture Infrastructure Fund can support the adoption of biomass-powered cold storage and beyond.
• Enable large-scale financing of cleantech solutions which requires supporting bankers’ capacity on credit assessment. 
  • There is also a need to protect their risks in the initial stages of the market through partial guarantees. Active engagement with financiers is important to structure loan products. 
  • Adopting some of these principles helped ‘Powering Livelihoods’, a CEEW-Villgro initiative, unlock 300-plus loans for cleantech solutions to women, self help groups, farmer producer organizations and individual micro-entrepreneurs in rural areas.
• Enable multi-actor partnerships between technology innovators, manufacturers, distributors and service providers, financiers, and market-linkage players to enable an overall ecosystem. 
• A holistic ecosystem to enable the connection from distribution to the market to create a thriving ecosystem for cleantech to impact rural livelihoods at scale. 

Conclusion:

India has massive ambitions for a clean and green future. By focusing on cleantech for livelihoods and jobs, especially in rural areas, we can make that green future inclusive. 

News Source: The Hindu