The Investors’ Meet was attended by leading financers and institutions including Department for International Development, Government of United Kingdom (DFID), Asian Development Bank (ADB), GIZ from Germany, AFD from France, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited (IREDA), State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank (PNB) as well as leading renewable energy organizations such as Softbank Energy, L&T, Renew Power, Sembcorp, Amplus Solar, SunEdison and Gensol. They shared their expectations of being partners in the journey of renewable energy of Indian Railways. The investors acknowledged the efforts of Indian Railways in leading the development of renewable energy in the country and expressed strong support to Indian Railways on the path of going green and achieving the net zero carbon emissions target by 2030.

The meet was chaired by Member Traction, Railway Board, Shri Rajesh Tiwari. In the meet, Shri Tiwari gave an overview of Railways’ power scenario and the opportunities for various stake holders in the renewable energy sector. Shri Tiwari mentioned about the steps being undertaken by Indian Railways to reduce the cost of power procurement and the benefits of signing PPAs with Indian Railways such as low off take risk and clarity on roof rights.

Chairman, REMCL, Shri Rajeev Mehrotra, CEO, REMCL, Shri Sudhir Kumar Saxena, Additional Member, Electrical, Smt. Manju Gupta and other senior officials of Railway Board were also present during the meet.
Indian Railways has recently invited bids for 47 MW rooftop solar projects and 249 MW of wind solar hybrid projects. This meet was supported under the Power Sector Reforms Programme, as a part of cooperation agreed in the MoU signed between UK’s DFID and Indian Railways on 2nd December 2019.

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The signatories to the loan agreement were Shri Sameer Kumar Khare, Additional Secretary (Fund Bank and ADB), Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, and Mr Kenichi Yokoyama, Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission.

After signing the loan agreement, Shri Khare said that state highways and major district roads provide a crucial link between rural roads and national highways. The upgradation of these roads under the project will improve rural and peri-urban connectivity in the state and improve access to markets and better services.

While Mr Yokoyama said that the project continues ADB’s engagement with the state’s road sector since 2002. This will open a new partnership by introducing PPP through the hybrid-annuity model (HAM), thereby leveraging government financing and improving sustainability of capital investments.

The HAM is a mix of engineering, procurement, construction, and build-operate-transfer. This passes the responsibility of design, implementation, and operation and maintenance obligations to the private sector, while attracting some private sector financing. Under this model, the government will release 60% of the total project cost during construction, to be paid to the concessionaire in tranches linked to completion milestones. The remaining 40% is arranged by the concessionaire in the form of equity and commercial debt. Once the project is completed, the government will repay the concessionaire’s financial investment over 10 years.

The project will upgrade 750 km of state highways and 850 km of MDRs to two-lane and all-weather standards with road safety features. It will also develop an e-maintenance system, which can record defects or required maintenance, along with a training program to develop capacity on contract implementation and project finance in the Madhya Pradesh Road Development Corporation. Since 2002, ADB has provided the state government with five loans to develop its road network, improving about 7,300 km of roads or about 11% of the total network.

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