The government and the World Bank will work on a comprehensive project, to promote manufacturing and availability of affordable cooling devices in the domestic market. Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Rajesh Kumar Singh said this, while emphasising that both demand and supply side interventions in the sector would be facilitated.

The project will cover areas such as capacity building, introducing or disseminating better technologies for super efficient air-conditioners, and help promote sustainable and environmentally-friendly habitation. This would entail significant investment both from the World Bank side as concessional lending and an equal amount from the Indian government.

The investment and interventions in this area will not only be in the private sector manufacturing but also in areas like R&D, capacity building and others. Initially, super-efficient cooling devices would require bringing in scale on the production side, and on the supply side, the government may consider providing viability gap funding to the industry.

The focus of the project would be to bring in more energy efficiency as demand for these products is expected to increase in the coming years on account of severe heat waves in India.

The government has already rolled out a Rs 6,238-crore PLI scheme to boost manufacturing of AC and LED light components.