IIT Bombay startup's new solar cell will be game-changer for India: Pralhad Joshi
'This technology has the potential to achieve more than 30 per cent efficiency, far surpassing conventional solar panels, making India a global leader in next-gen photovoltaics, and by investing in such innovations, we are driving down the cost of solar energy, making it more accessible for all Indians,' the minister said.
'This is a national milestone and one of the highest performance levels ever achieved in India,' he remarked.
The minister visited the National Centre for Photovoltaic Research and Education (NCPRE) in IIT Bombay and held an interactive meeting with its Investigators and Advisory Board Members. He took a look at the Perovskite Tandem solar cell lab, Silicon Fab laboratory and Medium voltage Laboratory at NCPRE and interacted with the scientists.
NCPRE was launched at IIT Bombay in 2010 with funding from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) of the Government of India. The broad objectives of NCPRE are to provide R&D and education support for India's ambitious 100 GW solar mission. MNRE has provided over Rs 200 crore in funding to NCPRE, IIT Bombay, over the last 15 years.
MNRE is also supporting ART-PV India with $10 million ( about Rs 83 crore) for establishing a state-of-the-art pilot manufacturing facility on the IIT-B campus, in line with the commitment to nurturing domestic Intellectual Property, and ensuring Indian innovation reaches global markets. MNRE will continue to provide policy and financial support to ensure India's RE sector thrives on innovation and self-reliance, said Pralhad Joshi.
Joshi said, "The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is proud to support NCPRE's pioneering work in high-efficiency, low-cost Silicon-Perovskite Tandem Solar Cells, a game-changer for India's solar energy future.'
At a time when the world is seeking efficient, affordable, and scalable solar energy solutions, this innovation gives India a leadership edge, he added.
He said that this is not just a lab-scale breakthrough, it is a blueprint for clean, scalable, and Aatamnirbhar energy production. India is not just adopting renewable energy but defining its future through research in perovskite solar cells, Inverter technology, PV-reliability, green hydrogen, and energy storage, he added.
Joshi said that the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) was committed to advancing cutting-edge renewable energy technologies under the vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, ensuring India leads in clean energy innovation. In this respect, MNRE's support to premier institutions like NCPRE, IIT Bombay, strengthens domestic R&D, reducing reliance on imported technology and fostering indigenous manufacturing.
Through initiatives like the Renewable Energy Research & Technology development (RE-RTD) and R&D funding schemes, MNRE is enabling institutions like NCPRE to accelerate lab-to-market transitions, further stated Joshi. He added that NCPRE's work exemplifies how public-funded research, when coupled with policy support, can position India as a global clean energy hub.
Highlighting MNRE's Strategic Support for R&D & Commercialisation, Joshi urged the IIT Bombay-ART PV team to commercially demonstrate that Perovskite Tandem Solar Cells are not only scalable but also profitable.
'By making advanced technologies accessible to industry, we will not just be driving efficiency, but also building a stronger innovation ecosystem,' he said.
Joshi further stated that this approach aligns perfectly with the larger vision of the Central Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to turn Indian R&D into global benchmarks.
He stated that the Union Cabinet approved the Research Development and Innovation (RDI) Scheme just two weeks back, and the budget for Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD), stands at Rs. 1.27 lakh crore.
IIT Bombay Director Prof. Shireesh Kedare, NCPRE Principal Investigators (PIs) Prof. Baylon G. Fernandes and Prof. Chetan Singh Solanki, and ART-PV India Co-Founder Prof. Dinesh Kabra were present on the occasion.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Economic Times
24 minutes ago
- Economic Times
New dilemma looms for India's private hospitals: More beds, but few can lie in them
Live Events MUTED PROFITABILITY INVESTOR LINEUP RISE OF SPECIALISED CARE (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel There is a new dichotomy looming on the horizon for India's private hospitals Capacity expansion lined up by top players and recent record investments and blockbuster deals in the sector may result in a transition from capacity crunch to overcapacity in a short span in major urban areas, even as the number of beds continue to be an issue in small cities and to estimates by leading healthcare consultants and industry experts, more than 50,000 beds are likely to be added in the organised hospitals sector in the next three-four years, with chains like Apollo Healthcare, Aster DM Healthcare, Fortis Healthcare and Max Healthcare leading the affordability problems persist, though the situation is improving. While the addition of more beds can help close the gap in India's poor bed to patient ratio—1.4 beds to 1,000 people—data shows that 75% of the healthcare infrastructure in metro cities is catering to a third of their World Health Organization(WHO) recommends about three beds per 1,000 people; Indian public health standards recommend a minimum of one bed, desirably India's metros, there are 2.5-3.5 beds per 1,000 people, but when it comes to quality, the bed density varies from as low as 0.4 to 1.0, estimates Kaivaan Movdawalla, partner and Healthcare Sector leader at EY-Parthenon numbers point to the need for more affordable healthcare delivery from private hospitals, something that can enable an increase in capacity utilisation and drive long-term good news is that demand for private healthcare has been growing. 'Post Covid, we are seeing a much greater momentum towards organised quality private healthcare,' said Movdawalla.'The key supply drivers are the high disease burden, expanding middle class and unlocking of demand for the bottom of the pyramid through social insurance,' he added.'A discernible shift of demand towards organised quality hospital segments is evident now. We see a demand-supply gap for quality beds to the tune of 25-40%,' he without affordability, filling them might remain a also warn that the flow of investment and the wave of capacity expansion lined up by leading chains in the next 3-4 years could weigh on profitability and margins of the leading hospital financial services firm Macquarie in a recent report maintained a cautious stance on Indian hospitals due to an upcoming capacity deluge with organic bed addition in the next four years slated to be four times that of what was added in the last five years. The report stated that profitability improvement in existing hospitals remained muted and even small bed capacity expansion was driving profitability compression. 'We expect private hospitals to add 40% capacity organically in the next 3 years… Eight large-listed hospital chains are slated to add over 15,000 beds in the next 3-5 years versus addition of about 3,400 in the last five years,' the report notwithstanding, the sector which has seen a flurry of investments in the last few years — especially post Covid — continues to remain a private equity favourite. Last week, Bengaluru-based Manipal Hospitals bought Pune-based Sahyadri Hospitals Group from Canada's Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP) for around ?6,000 crore. Integration of Sahyadri with it will take Manipal's total capacity to about 12,000 Bengaluru-based hospital chain, Aster DM Healthcare, recently became the second largest healthcare chain in the country in terms of revenue after its merger with Blackstone-backed Quality Care. The company is eyeing the number one position, deputy managing director Alisha Moopen told terms of bed capacity, Aster DM may be leading by a whisker with a total of 10,300 beds after the merger compared with the country's largest pan India hospital chain by revenue, Apollo Hospitals, which has a bed capacity of 10, DM plans to add 3,300 beds in the next couple of years, taking the total number of beds to 13,600. Apollo Hospitals plans to invest ?6,000 crore to add 4,300 beds. 'In the short-term, supply will outpace demand,' said an analyst with a leading brokerage. 'The primary growth driver for most multispecialty hospitals was not volume but it was ARPOB (average revenue per occupied bed — an industry metric), which was led by rate hikes of beds and procedures,' the person from private equity firm Avendus shows that the hospital market in India is estimated to grow to $110 billion in the next 3-4 years from the current $76 billion, growing at a compounded annual rate of 10% driven by strong tailwinds from a rise in lifestyle diseases and increasing affordability. In 2019, or pre-Covid, the healthcare delivery market was $47 billion. Private hospitals and trusts currently constitute a 67% market share. Experts say that rising demand for quality healthcare, higher disposable income in small towns and rural areas and increasing insurance coverage will continue to drive more consolidation and M&As with a sharper focus on patient-centric large multispecialty hospitals are expanding through a combination of greenfield and brownfield expansion, single-specialty hospitals are increasingly gaining traction with rising demand from small towns.'The share of single specialty will become larger in the next four years and the organised players will more than double,' said Anshul Gupta, managing director and head of healthcare investment banking at Avendus single-specialty format, where a hospital typically would have 40-50 beds, presents an opportunity for greater geographical depth compared to multispecialty hospitals where the average size is about 250-300 beds. Specialisations seeing demand include mother and child care, IVF and is sparking consolidation. Large eye care chains like Dr Agarwal's Eye Hospital, Maxivision and others with PE backing have been acquiring anywhere between eight and 10 smaller players every year.'Demand for quality care is going up in rural areas with rising disposable income and for quality care there will be takers. There are a lot of untapped cities where there is demand,' said Bhanu Prakash, partner and Healthcare Services Industry leader at Grant Thornton. 'Focus will be on optimising capacity utilisation and improving ARPOBs,' he said. This is where single-specialty models will play a crucial role, he private equity investments in the single-specialty sector crossed $3.7 billion, accounting for over 35% of total hospital investments in the last 10 years. About 70% of these investments have gone to established specialties such as IVF, eyecare, mother & childcare, dialysis and is also a significant growth opportunity — especially for single specialty hospitals — in smaller cities such as Lucknow, Vizag, Jaipur, Kochi, Siliguri, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Patna, among others, with an increasing number of consumers wanting access to quality healthcare closer rising demand and lack of supply are prompting larger players also to expand in non-metros. Aster DM, for instance, will expand operations to cities such as Indore, Raipur, Aurangabad and Bhubaneshwar.
Economic Times
24 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Divorce in the air, marriages for the rich built on ‘trust'
Synopsis As prenuptial agreements lack legal standing in India, affluent families are increasingly utilizing private family discretionary trusts to safeguard assets during marital breakdowns. This trend, initially favored by the ultra-rich, now extends to the upper-middle-class, offering protection against financial risks associated with divorce and ensuring family wealth remains secure, especially in inter-caste or inter-religious marriages. TIL Creatives Representative Image Mumbai: With prenuptial agreements still not legally enforceable in India, the rich are finding new ways to shield themselves from the financial blow of a marital breakdown. The 'private family discretionary trust' is one such arrangement being repurposed to meet this need. A Delhi-based garment exporter, whose son's marriage soured very soon, said, 'Thanks to the trust we'd set up before the wedding, his business interest and family home remained untouched.'Similarly, a leading jeweller in Mumbai placed all real estate assets in a discretionary trust, naming his son as beneficiary. When the son filed for divorce, the wife could lay no claim on the properties she once thought she'd co-own. 'By definition, a trust protects the interest of the beneficiaries through the trustee ' said Rajat Dutta, founder of Inheritance Needs Services. 'In case a borrower defaults in financial obligations to lenders, then the assets in the trust cannot be attached by the lender, though the borrower is one of the trustees and also one of the beneficiaries,' said trend, once limited to the ultra-high net worth individuals in India, is now spreading to the upper-middle-class, as people look to protect their earnings and save the family from litigation, especially in case of a divorce. The trust also protects women. According to a lawyer, a woman who often had to deal with her husband's irrational demand for financial support, was able to protect her financial assets as they were in the trust which her father had created for his daughter and her to legal experts, this arrangement is also being adopted by traditional, business-oriented families which want to protect their enterprises, and parents of non-resident Indians who are in mixed marriages. SHIELDING SONS, SIDE-STEPPING BIAS Ashvini Chopra, head of family office solutions at Avendus Wealth Management, said many families are setting up trusts to shield the males from financial exposure after marriage, more so if it's not within the same caste and structured prudently, allow families to ensure that the male child technically doesn't own any asset and is just a beneficiary, thereby reducing the scope of a claim in case of a divorce.'Indian parents being possessive of family wealth wish to protect inherited wealth and de -risk future perceived risks of breakups' said Dutta of Inheritance Needs said that trust deeds are now being drafted keeping potential divorce in mind—a shift from their traditional inheritance-focused intent. In some recent highprofile divorces, judgments have varied widely, largely because there's no clear legislative framework—like a prenup—to guide settlements. Citing a case, a Mumbai-based family lawyer said, "A family business was nearly halved after a divorce settlement. Had the assets been placed in a properly drafted discretionary trust, they would have been out of legal reach.'A Mumbai-based estate planner spoke of a wealthy retired bureaucrat from Delhi who, on learning that his son wished to marry a divorcee with a girl child, put his entire wealth in a also a future-facing angle to this trust trend.
Time of India
36 minutes ago
- Time of India
Govt to distribute 10k high-yielding cows to farmers: CM
1 2 3 Bhubaneswar: State govt will distribute 10,000 high-milk yielding cows to farmers under the Mukhyamantri Kamadhenu Yojana, announced chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Saturday. An MoU was signed between the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and the Odisha State Cooperative Milk Producers' Federation (Omfed) in Cuttack on Saturday, under which NDDB will facilitate the supply of 3,000 to 4,000 high-milk-yielding cows of Gir, Sahiwal and cross-bred varieties to dairy farmers in the state. Plans are also underway to set up a biogas plant with NDDB's support, aiming at sustainable energy and added income for livestock owners. Majhi launched milk powder packaging machines and handed over 22 new milk tankers to various dairy societies. Built at an investment of Rs 7.5 crore, the capacity of the tankers ranges from 2,000 to 15,000 litres. Additionally, three advanced milk packaging machines worth Rs 3.5 crore were inaugurated to increase processing capacity. "The initiatives will enhance milk procurement from farmers, with the state aiming to increase its current daily milk production of 72 lakh litres to 165 lakh litres by 2036 and 274 lakh litres by 2047," Majhi said. He further said that a contract has been signed between Omfed and Shree Jagannath Temple Administration for supplying around 30 metric tonnes of ghee for Mahaprasad and other rituals. Besides, the federation is now focusing on producing value-added dairy products such as paneer, butter, chhenapoda, ice cream, flavoured milk, mishti doi, peda and rabdi, among others. "These initiatives are also opening new income avenues for Odisha's youth," Majhi said. During the event, the CM interacted with dairy farmers, inquiring about their challenges and receiving feedback. The event was attended by minister for fisheries and animal resources development Gokulananda Mallik, Cuttack MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, Omfed chairman Kishore Chandra Pradhani, NDDB dairy services director Debanand, Omfed director Vijay Amrut Kulange, among others. Bhubaneswar: State govt will distribute 10,000 high-milk yielding cows to farmers under the Mukhyamantri Kamadhenu Yojana, announced chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Saturday. An MoU was signed between the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and the Odisha State Cooperative Milk Producers' Federation (Omfed) in Cuttack on Saturday, under which NDDB will facilitate the supply of 3,000 to 4,000 high-milk-yielding cows of Gir, Sahiwal and cross-bred varieties to dairy farmers in the state. Plans are also underway to set up a biogas plant with NDDB's support, aiming at sustainable energy and added income for livestock owners. Majhi launched milk powder packaging machines and handed over 22 new milk tankers to various dairy societies. Built at an investment of Rs 7.5 crore, the capacity of the tankers ranges from 2,000 to 15,000 litres. Additionally, three advanced milk packaging machines worth Rs 3.5 crore were inaugurated to increase processing capacity. "The initiatives will enhance milk procurement from farmers, with the state aiming to increase its current daily milk production of 72 lakh litres to 165 lakh litres by 2036 and 274 lakh litres by 2047," Majhi said. He further said that a contract has been signed between Omfed and Shree Jagannath Temple Administration for supplying around 30 metric tonnes of ghee for Mahaprasad and other rituals. Besides, the federation is now focusing on producing value-added dairy products such as paneer, butter, chhenapoda, ice cream, flavoured milk, mishti doi, peda and rabdi, among others. "These initiatives are also opening new income avenues for Odisha's youth," Majhi said. During the event, the CM interacted with dairy farmers, inquiring about their challenges and receiving feedback. The event was attended by minister for fisheries and animal resources development Gokulananda Mallik, Cuttack MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, Omfed chairman Kishore Chandra Pradhani, NDDB dairy services director Debanand, Omfed director Vijay Amrut Kulange, among others.
