The ministry offers support of up to 50 percent of the cost of such systems set up by non-profit bodies and up to 35 percent cost support to profit making bodies.

'Over 40 systems covering a dish area of about 12,000 sq metre have been supported by the ministry so far for various applications, though the major application is cooking only,' a government statement said.

Some of the large solar steam cooking systems installed include systems at Mount Abu in Rajasthan for 10,000 people every day, and at Tirupathi in Andhra Pradesh and Satyabhama university in Chennai, which cater to about 15,000 people per day.