India's prime minister Manmohan Singh has unveiled a 30-year, US$19-billion plan to make the country a leader in solar energy.

Announced on 3 August, the programme aims to raise installed solar capacity from its current 5 MW to 20 GW by 2020, 100 GW by 2030 and 200 GW by 2050, although a detailed road map has been drawn up to 2020 only. An autonomous solar-energy authority will be created to execute the mission, and the existing solar-energy centre near New Delhi will be upgraded to an institute that will coordinate solar-research centres across the country and promote foreign collaboration — a key feature of the plan.

Industry carrots include tax credits and priority bank loans for solar-power projects, as well as the duty-free import of raw materials. And conventional power plants with steam-driven turbines will have to generate at least 5% of their capacity from solar power.