India is the world’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, with its energy supply heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Over the past decade, India has made significant progress and achieved rapid growth in renewable energy capacity. The country risks remaining locked into a carbon-intensive trajectory, as rising energy continues to outpace the deployment of clean energy solutions. New solutions are needed to drive decarbonisation in key sectors and to support further scale-up of renewable energy. Climate change complicates this transition, with extreme weather events disrupting power supply and heat waves increasing demand for fossil fuel-based energy.

This programme will accelerate India’s clean energy transition by mobilising climate finance for emerging clean energy technologies and strengthening state-owned Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) to institutionalise green lending practices and drive large-scale gender-responsive investments. It will enable DFIs to offer loans to public and private sector borrowers to finance initiatives for decarbonisation of the energy, transport, industry, and agriculture sectors. It will also establish a Risk-Sharing Facility (RSF) to provide guarantees for small-scale projects, facilitating investments by local financial institutions.

Key activities include providing DFIs with concessional credit lines for on-lending to public and private sector borrowers and establishing the RSF to promote investment in sectors aligned with India’s clean energy transition goals and national programmes; and building the capacity of financial institutions in India to finance emerging clean energy technologies through technical assistance, policy engagement, and capacity-building initiatives. In addition, there will be a focus on ensuring climate finance principles and gender-responsive approaches are embedded into institutional practices.