Final report on new environmental norms for construction sector soon
Facing criticism for proposing changes in environmental norms for the construction sector, which critics have alleged will benefit the construction industry at the cost of environmental checks, the Union environment ministry has formed a committee to consider the objections before finalising the changes. The four-member committee formed on 27 September has been given two months’ time to give its report. The committee has had four meetings so far and would soon submit its final report. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) published a draft notification (29 April 2016) proposing integrating environmental conditions with building permissions granted by local authorities under state-specific land laws. The draft meant that after such integration, construction projects would not require compulsory clearances under the Environment Protection Act. As per the current norms, building and construction projects with built-up area over 20,000 sq. metres and above require green clearances. However, in the proposed system, three categories of buildings—5,000-20,000 sq. metres, 20,000-50,000 sq. metres and 50,000-150,000 sq. metres—are being created where standard conditions are slightly stricter for larger buildings than smaller ones. Subsequently, the proposal came under heavy criticism from environmentalists who alleged that it will result in bypassing of environmental checks like environment impact assessment of construction projects may be given a miss. “The committee formed on 27 September is a result of criticism that the ministry faced in the past few months only,” said a senior official of the MoEFCC, who did not wish to be identified. The committee includes S.K. Srivastava, additional director in MoEFCC, Chandra Bhushan of NGO Centre for Science and Environment, Mili Majumdar of Green Business Certification Institute Pvt. Ltd and Tanmay Tathagat, director at consulting firm Environmental Design Solution. The 27 September order states that the 29 April draft notification “needs to be finalised after analysing and incorporating the comments received from the public, if need be after offering the opportunity of hearing”. “The committee would consider the objections /suggestions of stakeholders,” said the 27 September MoEFCC order, which was reviewed by Mint. A member of the four-member committee, who did not wish to be identified, said they are not aware whether the order regarding the committee’s formation was made public or not. “We have analysed the comments and suggestions that MoEFCC had received. Our report is nearly finalised and we would submit it to the ministry soon,” the member said. Another committee member, who also did not wish to be identified, said, “The 29 April draft notification had received hundreds of comments and suggestions. There were several loopholes in that notification. We have had four meetings of the committee and have analysed all the comments. The committee would now soon give its final report.” The proposed changes by MoEFCC is significant as India is set to witness rapid urbanisation up to 2030 and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has pledged housing for all by 2022. Gabe Holmes Womens Jersey
Haryana to close five toll points
The Haryana Government has decided to close five toll points and install three new toll points in the State. The Haryana Cabinet on Wednesday met under the Chairmanship of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in Chandigarh to approve the proposal of the Public Works (Building and Roads) Department to close five toll points after the expiry of their present agreements and install three new one near inter-State borders. The five toll points which are to be closed include the Gurugram-Pataudi road toll point. Its toll agreement would close on December 12, 2017. Similarly, the Gurugram-Farrukh Nagar-Jhajjar road toll point would also be closed after completion of its agreement on August 27, 2017. The third toll point is on Neval Gheer Garhi Birbal road. Its date of completion is November 30, 2016. The other two toll points to be closed are Pehowa-Ladwa-Saharanpur Haridwar road, Section 3rd gate of Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra to Pehowa and that of Karnal Rambha Indri Ladwa road. The agreements for both points would close later this year. The three new toll points which would be installed after completion of repair work are on Palwal-Jewar-Aligarh road, Ateli to Kheri road in Mahendragarh district and Narnaul-Koriawas-Rambass road in Mahendragarh district. PTI adds Direct-To-Home (DTH) services and cable service providers will now come under tax net with the Haryana Cabinet giving approval in this regard on Wednesday. The State Cabinet on Wednesday approved the amendments to the provisions of the Punjab Entertainment Duty Act, 1955, to make provision for implementation of electronic governance under the Act and the Rules framed thereunder, said an official spokesman. The scope of definition of ‘entertainment’ has been expanded to include entertainments provided by the Direct-to-Home (DTH) services and cable service providers. After this amendment, the State Government will be able to levy tax on cable service providers and on DTH services, he said. The amendments approved by the Cabinet will be placed before the State Legislature for approval, he said. Besides, the Haryana Cabinet also approved amendments to the provisions of the Haryana Tax on Luxuries Rules, 2008, in order to facilitate the proprietors registered under the Haryana Tax on Luxuries Act, 2007, to implement electronic governance in the fields of registration amendment, cancellation of registration certificate, returns and payment of tax, said the spokesman. The Council of Ministers also approved rationalisation of entertainment duty. Rate of duty on cinematograph exhibitions will remain at 30 per cent and rate of duty on all other entertainments including amusement parks, fun parks, cultural activities etc. has been fixed at 15 per cent, he said. Adrian Gonzalez Jersey
Power transmission sector shoots in the dark with no set targets
While the central government has clear targets for renewable energy and power distribution sector, the power transmission sector seems to have been left out. Since the start of the financial year, eight projects of Rs 9,635 crore have been announced to be offered through tariff-based competitive bidding (TBCB). However, these projects are at different levels of selection and yet to be awarded. The government plans to offer projects totalling Rs 4,500 crore, but there is no timeline yet. This comes at a time when the Centre has said Rs 50,000 crore worth of transmission projects will be awarded by the end of the financial year. According to officials, the amount reflects not the number of projects but the opportunity for the sector. Last year, projects worth Rs 18,000 crore were tendered out. “There is no particular benchmark or cost structure that is being followed to award transmission projects. When we say Rs 50,000 crore, it includes inter- and intra-state corridors, projects that state-owned Power Grid Corporation would build and also the spillover from last year,” said a senior power ministry official. He said the count for the projects would keep increasing as and when the screening committee clears the projects. The inter-departmental screening committee of the power ministry clears power transmission projects, which then move to the empowered committee that decides whether it would be awarded through TBCB or nominated to Power Grid. Power transmission sector was opened up to the private sector in 2010. The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission had, in 2011, mandated that power transmission projects should be awarded through TBCB like the case with generation projects. Power Grid was the only company operating in this space till then. The recently amended National Tariff Policy, 2016, mandates that apart from projects of strategic importance that would be nominated to state-owned Power Grid, all should be awarded through TBCB. However, the perimeter of nomination is not defined. Executives said the private sector is in a fix over the government projections. “The Centre should encourage states to adopt bidding route to reduce cost, which would help in achieving UDAY (Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana) targets. In the recent past, TBCB projects have showcased that tariff and costs of competitively bid projects have been at least 30 per cent less than projects awarded under the cost-plus mechanism. State utilities can then deploy their capital to improve operational efficiencies,” said a senior power sector expert. Tarang, the power ministry’s monitoring portal for power transmission projects, cites 27 inter-state and 11 intra-state projects under the upcoming category. The cost is not mentioned. Intra-state projects fall in the regulatory ambit of the state governments. Most of the intra-state projects are nominated to Power Grid. Of the 27 inter-state projects, the Empowered Committee is yet to decide on the mode of awarding the latest 10 projects. This year, the focus is on inter-regional corridors and connectivity for mega solar projects coming up in several states. Some of the projects are North Eastern Region Strengthening Scheme, Eastern Region Strengthening Scheme, and transmission system for solar parks in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Karnataka, among others, which would be awarded under the bidding route. Sylvester Williams Authentic Jersey
PM Narendra Modi to review expansion plan for NH-24
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to take stock of the expansion work of NH-24 on Wednesday in his monthly Pragati meeting. The project has been moving at snail’s pace 10 months after Modi laid the foundation stone for this project due to several hurdles including encroachments and two bridges over the Yamuna which await the green tribunal’s nod. Till now one package of the project stretch–Delhi border to Dasna–has not been awarded and NHAI is waiting for environment clearance for expanding this section as well. Government had hoped to show some visible progress by the time Uttar Pradesh goes for polls. In the past, the UPA government too had failed to widen the highway in 10 years of its rule. Sources said the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has referred the case of building two parallel bridges along the existing ones on Yamuna to its expert committee. “The case is scheduled to come up for hearing on November 15. We are hopeful of a favourable order as we are taking enough measures to protect the flow of river,“ said an NHAI official. A 2014 NGT order restricts any construction on Yamuna floodplains without its approval. The official added the work for widening of Delhi border to Dasna section would be awarded within a week. NHAI has received four bids after re-floating tenders. During the review meeting, highway ministry is likely to submit the need to expedite environment clearance and getting nearly 34 hectares from Delhi Development Authority , which NHAI can hand over to Delhi forest department for compensatory afforestation. “We also expect removal of encroachments and rehabilitation of 500-odd slums in Delhi will be expedited for which we are ready to pay the compensation,“ said an NHAI official. In the case of Dasna to Hapur section, which has already been awarded, NHAI is waiting for forest clearance from Uttar Pradesh government.There is no other hindrance to carry out expansion work of this portion. To beat the traffic nightmare on one of the most congested highways, NHAI has rolled out a project to widen NH-24 by expanding the Nizamuddin to Dasna stretch to 14 lanes and Dasna to Hapur to six lanes. Montravius Adams Womens Jersey
Delhi’s Rajghat power plant may become waste-to-energy
Delhi government is planning to convert the Rajghat Power Plant into a waste-to-energy plant, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Wednesday. The proposal was discussed on Wednesday in a meeting of the inter-ministerial task force appointed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to tackle the issue of pollution and garbage disposal in the city. “Delhi produces at least 10,000 tonnes of garbage every day while we don’t have capacity to process even half of it,” Jain said. He added that the proposal to convert Rajghat Power Plant into a waste-to-energy plant was discussed with the three municipal corporations. “They all agreed with the plan. It is a viable option and the site is ideal as it is accessible from all three municipalities. We are thinking about starting with a capacity of 4,000 tonnes,” Jain said. “If we do that, we would have enough capacity to at least process the new garbage that is generated every day,” he added. Jain said the committee also discussed plans to start small waste processing plants in vegetable markets, residential societies, hotels and the like. “By doing that, there will be no need to transport garbage to the landfill sites. Our goal is to build a capacity to process more waste than we generate,” he said. “We don’t want to dump more garbage on landfill sites. The only option is to process the waste,” he added. Jain also announced that the government will soon launch a mobile app through which people will be able to know about sanitation workers posted in their area and will also be able to complain in case of their being negligent about duty. “The app will also allow people to inform the concerned authority about garbage in their area that needs to be cleared,” he said. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare Jersey
Google Earth images shed light on where solar rooftops make sense
During his free time on the job as a Google employee, Carl Elkin began tinkering with the company’s 3D mapping program, wondering if it could identify rooftops that receive enough sunlight to make installing solar panels worthwhile. When months later the U.S.-based engineer showed a handful of colleagues the results of his labor, they had a eureka moment. “The lightbulb kind of went off,” said Joel Conkling, Elkin’s colleague at the California-based company. “It felt like intuitively it had some real potential.” Soon after, a team followed Elkin’s lead and designed Project Sunroof. The project website uses Google Earth’s high-resolution aerial images to calculate any roof’s solar energy potential. For homeowners, figuring out whether installing thousands of dollars worth of solar panels is a sound investment can be confusing. Project Sunroof aims to make the decision easier – and speed up the adoption of solar energy, which today accounts for less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity generation. Homeowners interested in assessing their property’s solar potential can enter their address on Project Sunroof’s website, and in roughly a second get a calculation of how many hours of usable sunlight their roof receives, Conkling said. Thousands of lines of computer code analyze factors such as the shade trees cast on a roof, its orientation and local weather patterns, he said. Project Sunroof then connects users whose roof is suitable for solar panels with companies that install them. “People can come in and very quickly and very easily get a pretty sophisticated understanding of their solar potential and whether it makes sense for them to go solar,” said Conkling, a product manager for Project Sunroof. The response has been encouraging, he said. Last month, Project Sunroof was among 13 projects from around the world to win a Momentum for Change award, which recognises innovative and potentially transformative ways to tackle climate change and move toward a low-carbon future. “We were impressed by the scalability of the technology with more and more states and homes able to utilize it,” said Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the Bonn-based U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, which presents the award. Since launching last year, Project Sunroof has expanded from offering analysis of rooftops in two states to 42 states, from New York to California. Thousands of users have been connected with solar-panel installers, Conkling told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. In many states, homeowners who produce solar energy can sell all or part of it the power grid. Such payments – and other incentives – are often essential to help offset the steep upfront investment, which can run between $17,000 and $24,000 for a typical solar panel system, according to data from research firm GTM Research. Other U.S. companies also map the solar potential of roofs, including Geostellar and Mapdwell. But Conkling said he is confident that Google Earth’s global reach and high definition images can help it cover more ground and provide estimates with an unprecedented degree of accuracy. Nuttall, of the U.N. climate secretariat, agrees the system potentially could be used in many more places. “There seems no reason why one day it could not go global,” he said. In recent years, Google has invested nearly $2.5 billion in clean energy wind and solar projects, according to the company’s corporate website. Andrej Sekera Jersey
Investment in smart grid, battery storage and efficiency falls 76 per cent
Investments in smart grid, battery storage and efficiency companies globally dropped 76.4 per cent to $102 million in the quarter ended September 2016 from $443 million investments made in the previous quarter (Apr-June 2016), according to a latest report by Mercom Capital Group, a clean energy consultancy. Third quarter funding has dropped by 79.3 per cent as compared to the corresponding quarter last year when $ 493 was gathered in investments. Mercom said in its report the top funded company was Ecobeean — an efficiency firm which manufactures Wi-Fi-enabled smart thermostat – that raised $35 million from Amazon Alexa Fund. Other notable investments were Skeleton Technologies raising $14.5 million from FirstFloor Capital and Sense attracting $ 14million from Shell Technology Ventures. Mercom in its report titled “Funding and Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Activity for Smart Grid, Battery Storage and Energy Efficiency Sectors” covered specific details of the three sub-sectors. Smart Grid Venture capital (VC) funding for smart grid companies was around $11 million in the third quarter of 2016 compared to $81 million in the same period in 2015. Also, smart grid companies raised $222 million in the second quarter 2016. Battery Storage Investments in battery storage companies declined sharply to $30 million compared to $96 million in the same period in 2015. Battery storage companies had earlier raised $125 million in Q2 2016. Since 2013, $1.1 billion has been raised in this sector, Mercom said. Efficiency Similarly, investments in energy efficiency technology companies fell again this quarter with $61 million raised compared to $86 million in Q2 2016. On a year-on-year comparison, efficiency companies in the third quarter 2015 collected a much higher $316 million. Seventeen investors participated in Energy Efficiency VC deals in the quarter as compared to 18 in the previous quarter. Mercom delivers market intelligence and funding and M&A reports covering Smart Grid, Battery Storage & Energy Efficiency, and solar energy sector. The firm also advises companies on new market entry, custom market intelligence and strategic decision-making. Tom Kuhnhackl Jersey
Resolve core issues, not just financials: Industry
The government’s plan to make state run banks takeover distressed assets could be seen as a shot in the arm for the beleaguered power sector, but industry players say the success of the move would hinge on resolving issues related to electricity offtake. The government is considering encouraging state-run banks to acquire assets of loan defaulters in steel, power and shipping sectors, and rope in state-run companies to manage them, in an attempt to help the lenders get rid of non-performing assets. “This move would have helped the distressed projects if the main problem was financing or quality of management. But more than 24,000 mw of projects are stranded either due to lack of fuel or due to lack of power purchase agreements. A change of hands wouldn’t resolve the fundamental issues of the sector,” said Ashok Khurana of the Association of Power Producers. The association estimates that around 14,000 mw of power generation capacity has coal available, but are stranded due to lack of power purchase agreements, while another 10,500 mw of capacity is stranded due to lack of coal. A senior government official said banks would soon start discussions with the power ministry to explore the viability of the plan to take over distressed assets and getting PSUs to run these plants till a new promoter is found. Banks are exploring if they can give the operation contracts to PSUs. In the past, public sector units like NTPC have seen proposals from the private sector, but turned them down on valuation concerns, a problem that may be resolved if the banks were to step in. PSUs have also been reluctant to acquire private sector assets on worries of being potentially questioned by government auditor Comptroller and Auditor General or the CBI. But this new proposed route may remove those roadblocks as well. A senior NTPC executive told ET: “We have been looking at acquisition of private plants but valuation of assets has been the biggest challenge. The issue would not be there if banks join in. We may explore options together with banks.” Growth in electricity generation has been slow as demand from state-run power distribution companies (discoms) remained muted, with them opting for planned outages instead of buying more power to keep a check on their bills. In the second quarter of 2016-17, total generation growth was a dismal 1.3% yearon-year. Thermal power generation expanded just 0.3%, even as the inventory coal increased. In a recent report, ICICI Securities said the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana to revive state distribution companies may take more time to influence demand for power. “First half of FY17 power generation growth was recorded at 5.2% year-on-year; corroborating our belief that impact of UDAY implementation on power demand will be weaker than expected and will take longer to play out,” it said. Ryan Miller Authentic Jersey
Government plans to rationalise power tariffs
The government plans to make electricity billing more efficient and transparent by reducing the number of categories of consumers, which should improve tariff collection and improve the health of distribution companies. The Central government and states have begun talks to rationalise various categories of consumers. Currently , states have different and complex tariff structure with various categories and sub-categories of power consumers, officials said. A senior power ministry official said a committee constituting officials from Union power ministry , state power departments, central and state electricity regulators and Central Electricity Authority will look into simplifying categories of electricity consumers across states. “The idea is to have similar categories and sub-categories of power consumers in all states. We are trying to minimise the tariff categories,“ he said. Most states had agreed to the idea of having uniform tariff categories of electricity consumers at a two-day conference of Union and sta te power ministers held earlier this month in Vadodara. “Tariff rationalisation is one of the key resolutions adopted by the states at the conference,“ the official said. The Economic Survey of 2015-16 released by the government in February had pointed out that India should simplify its power tariff structure by classifying its consumers in just 23 categories to bring transparency and efficiency in billing. “Simplification of tariffs with, perhaps no more than 2-3 tariff categories, will improve transparency and may well yield consumption and collection efficiency, along with governance benefits,“ it had said. According to the survey, “The complexity may prevent consumers from fully responding to tariffs due to the high cost of processing the price information, a behavioural effect referred to as salience.” Tavon Wilson Womens Jersey
Aviation Min holds parleys with stakeholders for Budget inputs
Civil Aviation Ministry today held discussions with stakeholders to seek their suggestions for the Union Budget, days after unveiling the ambitious regional air connectivity scheme. The meeting was attended by Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, his deputy Jayant Sinha, Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey and other senior ministry officials. “We had a meeting with all stakeholders. We asked them to give suggestions keeping our sector’s growth (in mind). They said they will do an exercise among themselves. Then they will come back to us. Whatever suggestions are there we will look at how to take them forward,” Raju told PTI here. Speaking on the sidelines of the launch of AAI’s new subsidiary, he emphasised that the government wants to sustain the growth in the aviation sector and also create more jobs. Albert Wilson Jersey