In its efforts to promote Renewable Energy Technology, Winrock International India (WII) is implementing a project through its Hyderabad office. WII has set up a Risk Guarantee Fund (RGF) to provide an impetus to commercial lending for RE based enterprises/projects through part coverage of business and financial risks that could potentially be borne by entrepreneurs and lending institutions involved in such enterprises/projects. The project is intended to increase the comfort level of the lending institutions so that they are encouraged to carryout lending operations in these areas. Presently, the loan activities under this project are limited to the state of Andhra Pradesh.

In order to oversee the management of the fund, including taking decisions on granting portfolio loan guarantees to individual Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) and mainstream financial institutions, an independent and credible `Steering Committee’, has been constituted. Currently, the project team is working with selected entrepreneurs in providing technical assistance in designing, building and operating RET based projects, and assisting them in sourcing appropriate financial products. WII has also entered into an MoU with S3IDF, a social merchant bank that helps small enterprises to provide modern energy and other infrastructural services specifically to poor people in developing countries in ways that are financially sustainable and environmentally friendly, by which the latter would extend partial financial support to individual businesses and also help WII in leveraging funds from mainstream financial institutions. WII would also conduct workshops to increase the awareness financial institutions on RET based business enterprises. These workshops would showcase the experiences of the past and current projects, their successes, and difficulties faced.

The project is being facilitated by P.R.K. Sobhanbabu (Senior Program Officer), Ravi Chander Rangavajjula (Consultant), Veeraprasad Godugula (Program Associate) and Leesha Jojo (Associate – Program Support) in the Hyderabad office. Details are available at Establishing and Managing a Risk Guarantee Fund to Compliment the CREI Initiative in Active Projects - Energy & Environment.

For more information on the project, please contact:

P.R.K. Sobhanbabu
Head, Hyderabad Regional Center, and Senior Program Officer
Winrock International India
E-24, Vikrampuri
Secunderabad - 500009
Andhra Pradesh
Tel: +91-40-27845276 / 27843787
Fax: + 91- 040-27840988
Email: wii-hyderabad@winrockindia.org