Madhya Pradesh plans to raise funds through green bonds in five more cities along the lines of Indore, said Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Tuesday.
The CM was speaking here after the Indore Municipal Corporation’s green bonds were listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
Chouhan said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it mandatory for cities to get their credit rating done with the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and the Smart City Mission which he said was the first step towards issuing municipal bonds.
Indore was the first city in the country to get its bonds listed on the NSE in 2018, he said.
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“We have to achieve this target in 5 more cities this year. We will achieve this in the next 8-10 months by setting a road map. If funds are received from the bonds, the development of the cities will accelerate,” he said.
The CM said Indore, the cleanest city in India, thinks and works with out-of-the-box ideas.
He said Indore has included CNG and electric buses in its city bus service. Preparations are on to have 126 charging stations to encourage the use of electric vehicles, while bio CNG generated from wet waste will be used to power city buses, he said.
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Indore has earned Rs 9 crore by trading carbon credits in the global market, he said.
As per government officials, the money raised through the green bond will be used to set up a 60-megawatt solar power plant that would generate electricity to bring water from Narmada river in Jalud village in neighbouring Khargone district, some 80 kilometres from Indore.
The city civic body now spends about Rs 300 crore a year on electricity to bring Narmada water from Jalud to Indore and to pump it to every household in the city.
The Indore civic body had floated green bonds to raise Rs 244 crore for the solar power plant, the first of its kind offered by any municipal corporation in the country in the capital market.
The green bonds had drawn an overwhelming response from investors and attracted a subscription of around Rs 720.75 crore.
-With PTI Input
