New Delhi, Aug 3 - India's 30-year Rs.91,684 crore (Rs.916.84 billion/$19.25 billion) plan that aims to make it the global leader in solar energy is coming up for the nod by the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change here Monday evening.

A background note circulated to members of the council before the meeting says the National Solar Mission will add 20,000 MW of generation capacity by 2020 and make it as cheap as electricity from conventional sources.

The outlay will be with Rs.10,130 crore in the current Five Year Plan (ending 2012), Rs.22,515 crore in the 2012-2017 second phase, and Rs.11,921 crore in the 2017-2020 third phase.

The plan is to raise this by taxing fossil fuels, mainly coal. The objectives of the programme include:

* 20,000 MW of installed solar generation capacity by 2020 and 100,000 MW by 2030; 200,000 MW by 2050

* Solar power cost reduction to achieve grid tariff parity by 2020

* Achieve parity with coal-based thermal power generation by 2030

* 4-5 GW of installed solar manufacturing capacity by 2017.

The plan is to develop solar energy in India in three phases.

'The objective in Phase I (2009-12) will be to achieve rapid scale up to drive down costs, to spur domestic manufacturing and to validate the technological and economic viability of different solar applications,' says the note.

This will be done through promotion of commercial scale solar utility plants, mandated deployment of solar rooftop or on-site solar PV (photovoltaic) applications in government and public sector undertaking buildings, promotion of these applications in other commercial buildings, and mandating that at least five percent of power generating capacity being added every year will be through solar sources.

Vacant land in existing power plants will be used for this purpose, and anybody who produces solar power at home or office will be able to sell the excess back to the power distributor.

Solar PV panels will be promoted to charge invertors at homes and offices.