The Union Environment Ministry has decided to do away with the mandatory charging of lease rent of Rs 30,000 per MW from wind power projects, a move aimed to boost the sector as well as bring it at par with the solar and hydroelectric power projects to attract investments.

In a review meeting held here on Thursday, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said the move will boost the investment in wind power projects and will help in providing wind power at cheaper rate.

Currently, to establish wind power project over forest land, the existing procedure requires payment of mandatory charges for compensatory afforestation and Net Present value (NPV). In addition to mandatory charges, the wind power companies had to pay additional lease rent of 30,000 per MW.

“The Government envisages to meet maximum energy requirement by tapping renewal energy resources and, to achieve the target of clean energy in a time bound manner, various policies and regulations are being constantly updated,” the Minister added.

This additional cost is not mandatory for other renewal energy projects such as solar power and hydel-electric projects. Additional cost for generation of clean energy through wind power, in turn escalate the per unit cost of power at consumer level, added a senior official from the Ministry.

The government has set an ambitious target of having 175 GW of clean energy capacity by 2022, including 100 GW solar and 60 GW of wind energy.

Also, “promotions of such projects also strengthen government’s commitments towards international agreements, and one of the national commitments pledged in Paris in 2015 was to have 40 per cent of the power from renewable resources by 2030.

“It is noteworthy that currently India has over achieved the target and is well on track to ensure that more than 50 per cent of our installed capacity will come from renewable by 2030,” said the official.