India’s MNRE Sets Up Project Development Cell

• MNRE has created a Project Development Cell to attract renewable energy investments to the country
• The PDC will create projects with all approvals, availability of land and complete detailed project reports for adoption or investment by investors
• A dedicated portal is being launched as well to receive proposals and action taken on these

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in India has set up a Project Development Cell (PDC) within its aegis to ease and streamline the process of securing approvals for renewable energy developers. The move follows a central government directive.

The federal Government of India has mandated the setting up of an Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) and Project Development Cells (PDC) within all ministries and departments to attract investments in the country by ensuring coordination between the central and state governments.

PDC under the MNRE will be tasked with creating projects for all approvals, availability of land for allocation and complete detailed project reports for adoption or investment by investors. At the same time, it will also identify issues that hinder new projects and their investments which need to be placed before the Empowered Group for resolution.

It will be headed by Joint Secretary MNRE, Amitesh Kumar Sinha who is also heading the recently created Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cell along with Director MNRE Ruchin Gupta (see FDI Cell Created By India's MNRE).

The ministry is also developing a dedicated portal to receive proposals from the renewable energy sector that will detail the status of action taken on such proposals, it stated.

Struggling to get the Indian economy moving post the much infamous demonetization move of November 2016, the government is stepping up its efforts. With China bearing the brunt of being the unfortunate country of origination of the COVID-19 pandemic, global analysts believe it is a good time for India to position itself as an attractive investment destination for about everything, including manufacturing. Creation of the FDI cell and PDC are means to present a positive image to the global renewable energy investment community.

According to a Bloomberg report titled India Steps Up Effort to Grab China's Title of the World's Factory on June 4, 2020, India is wooing global firms to set up shop in the country by offering them tax incentives, easy access to land and other infrastructure, basically following the Chinese business model of 'plug-and-play option to become an economic heavyweight' to 'take advantage of a possible shift in international supply chains'.

Currently, the 2 nations are under a diplomatic standoff with border tensions escalating.