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The Minister of Environment and Forests, Thiru A. Raja, said that India has received funding of about US $ 240 million for over 350 projects to phase out about 12,000 Ozone Depleting Potential (ODP) tons.
Inaugurating the conference on ‘Meeting challenges in phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) from India’s refrigeration and air-conditioning (RAC) service sector’, here today, Thiru Raja said that more than 175 projects have already been completed resulting in phasing out of about 6000 ODP tons. The projects include non-investment and investment projects in the refrigeration, foam blowing, aerosol, solvent, and firefighting equipment sectors.
Observing that India has taken various policy and fiscal measures for smooth implementation of ODS (Ozone Depleting Substances) phase-out projects and National ODS Phase-out Plan, the Minister pointed out that completion of such projects demonstrates India’s commitment to phase out ODS without undue burden to the industry - especially the small and medium scale enterprises.
“One of the major challenges relating to phasing out of ODS to most of the countries including India has been the Refrigeration and Air-conditioning sector (RAC)”, he said, adding that “this has been mainly due to the long life of equipment used in this sector, extensive spread of equipment to various end users including domestic households, shops and degree of economic activity for informal sector, especially servicing, generated by this sector”.
Therefore, action is necessary to reduce and eliminate dependence of this sector, especially the servicing agencies, on ODS based technologies in a cost effective manner, Thiru Raja emphasised.
Addressing the gathering, Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Dr Prodipto Ghosh said that the National CFC Phase-out Plan mostly addresses the refrigeration and air-conditioning servicing sectors to ensure the services of new and old refrigerators and also to assist industries in choosing new technologies.
The attention given to the servicing sector is not only important from the consumer’s perspective, but also for the large number of micro and small enterprises engaged in servicing of refrigerator and air-conditioning systems, as servicing technicians make a significant contribution to the national economy and have limited capacity to run their business in environmentally-friendly manner, he added.
AKS/rs
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