Nagpur: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday said electricity tariffs, which earlier used to rise by 9% annually, will now decline by 1.2% each year from 2025 to 2030. Domestic power tariffs will be 26% lower than current levels, while industrial power tariffs will be 9% lower, he said.The CM was speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for Waaree Energies’ solar ingot and wafer manufacturing plant in the additional Butibori industrial area.Fadnavis said India is now among the fastest countries shifting from conventional to renewable energy. He noted that India earlier imported solar modules, wafers and ingots from China, but that is no longer the case. “Work is progressing rapidly under the Chief Minister Solar Feeder Scheme to meet farmers’ electricity demand of 16,000 MW in the state. So far, 5,000 MW capacity has been created, and this is expected to reach 14,000 MW by the end of the year,” the CM said.He said solar energy has helped avoid pollution that would otherwise have required planting 300 crore trees to offset thermal power emissions. He added that under the solar agricultural pump scheme, Maharashtra alone has installed 60% of all such pumps in the country and has entered the Guinness Book of World Records for installing the highest number of pumps in a single month.Responding to criticism over Davos-related initiatives, Fadnavis said he answers criticism through work. He said he had performed groundbreaking ceremonies for three projects in a day — New Era Cleantech, Greta Energy and Waaree Energies — and that all three had materialised through the Davos platform.Among those present were minister of state Ashish Jaiswal, minister of state Pankaj Bhoyar, MP Shyamkumar Barve, Waaree Energies directors Kirit Doshi and Pankaj Doshi, former MP Ajay Sancheti and Viren Doshi.
