Patna, June 21: The Bihar government today gave its nod to the new and renewable energy policy 2011 to promote and attract entrepreneurs wishing to set up power plants based on renewable energy sources such as biomass, solar wind and hydro among others to help strengthen power generation in the state.

Elaborating on the new energy policy, which got the state cabinet’s nod, energy department Principal secretary Ajay V. Nayak told reporters: “We are working hard on to improve the power generation by setting up thermal power plants. Now, we want to tap new and renewable energy sources which have potential to generate around 2,000MW of power in the state.”

The new renewable energy policy, which would be known as “Bihar Policy for Promotion of New and Renewable Energy Sources, 2011”, promises a slew of incentives for those entrepreneurs who wish to set up power plants based on renewable energy sources. The policy would come into operation from the date of its notification for a period of five years, the principal secretary said, while further adding that the last policy titled “Policy Guidelines for Private Sector Participation for Developing Non-conventional Energy Sources” formulated in 2003 came to an end in 2008.

“The government has been working on to formulate new policy for last one-and-a-half years,” Nayak said, adding that the State Investment Promotion Board (SIPB), set up by the Nitish government in 2006 to promote investments in every sector, has cleared proposals to generate around 400MW alone from biomass.

Moreover, the state can generate power from 180MW alone from rice husk which has become quite popular, he said and added that another 80MW could be generated from municipal wastes.

Bihar at present generates around 6MW from biomass plants, around 4KW from solar power plant at Patailiya village in Samastipur district and about 55MW from hydro electric power plants.

Moreover, giving approval to the renewable energy policy, the state cabinet also decided not to issue any more licences to individual persons to run shops under public distribution system (PDS).

“Now, the new licences to run PDS shops would be given to groups such as Primary Agriculture Cooperative Society, self-help groups, co-operative society of ex-servicemen, women’s cooperative society,” said Deepak Kumar, principal secretary of general administration department, who is also holding the additional charge of cabinet co-ordination department.

He said that the cabinet gave its approval to the monsoon session of state legislature beginning July 15. The session would end on July 21.

Kumar said the non-teaching officers and employees of Rajendra Agriculture University, Pusa, and Bihar Agriculture University, Sabour, would get a revised pay-scale with effect from January 1, 2006.

The government also approved the proposal to exempt foodgrains from the purview of value added tax net to provide relief to the common man, the principal secretary said and added that this exemption has been given with a condition that any individual who is doing business of turnover not exceeding Rs 100 crore in a year would get the benefit. The government approved payment of salary of trained teachers to untrained teachers of primary schools having high qualifications.