Context: Recently, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has launched a loan interest subvention scheme in association with UNIDI and GEF to provide financial assistance for innovative waste to energy biomethanation projects.

• The industrial organic waste-to-energy bio-methanation projects are generally capital intensive and financially sensitive to both operating costs, including waste availability, and revenue, particularly biogas yield and its utilisation scenario.

About the scheme

• The scheme provides financial assistance to innovative waste to energy biomethanation projects and business models.
• The loan scheme provides financial assistance to beneficiaries to reduce the financial burden on account of interest on the loan component faced by such demonstration projects.
• Innovations in such projects seek to improve overall energy output thereby minimising the cost of energy generation.
• This may lead to an increase in the initial project cost at the establishment stage yet increase revenue and reduce operating costs over project's lifetime.

Global Environment Facility

• The Global Environment Facility (GEF) was established on the eve of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 to tackle our planet’s most pressing environmental problems.
• The GEF is the largest multilateral trust fund focused on enabling developing countries to invest in nature.
• Funds are available to developing countries and countries with economies in transition to meet the objectives of the international environmental conventions and agreements.
• It supports the implementation of major international environmental conventions including on biodiversity, climate change, chemicals, and desertification.
• Through its Small Grants Programme, the GEF has provided support to more than 25,000 civil society and community initiatives in 135 countries.
• It has provided more than $21.5 billion in grants and mobilized an additional $117 billion in co-financing for more than 5,000 projects and programs.
• Members: 184 governments in addition to civil society, international organization, and private sector partners.

Key Focus

• Strategically focusing its investments to catalyze transformational change in key systems that are driving major environmental loss, in particular energy, cities and food;
• Prioritizing integrated projects and programs that address more than one global environmental problem at a time, building on the GEF's unique position and mandate to act on a wide range of global environmental issues; and
• Implementing new strategies and policies to enhance results, including stronger engagement with the private sector, indigenous peoples, and civil society, and an increased focus on gender equality.