September 29, 2025
BHOPAL – Already crowned India’s cleanest city for eight years in a row, Indore city in Madhya Pradesh has now added another ‘green’ feather in its cap, as it has become the country’s first city that will receive supply of drinking water using electricity from a solar power plant, which has been built mainly through funds generated by sale of green bonds on the stock exchange.
The solar energy plant, set up by the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC), is scheduled to begin functioning from November this year. The electricity generated from it would be used to operate pumps to supply drinking water from the Narmada River to Indore city.
The solar power plant has been set up through funding generated from a public issue of green bonds by the IMC.
The 60-MW renewable energy unit, spread on 220 acres of land, has been built for Rs 308 crore, of which Rs 244 crore has come from the sale of the IMC’s green bonds on India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE).
The unit would generate enough power to efficiently enable the pumps to supply water to Indore city, located at a distance of more than 80 km from the solar power plant, which is in Jalud village in the Maheshwar Tehsil of neighbouring Khargone district.
According to Indore Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava, the plant was launched to promote renewable energy and reduce the power expenditure of the Narmada water project, and it is now almost complete.
“Of the total project cost of Rs 308 crore, IMC raised Rs 244 crore through a public issue of green bonds, making it the country’s first renewable energy unit financed in this manner”, Bhargava informed.
He said that the sale of green bonds attracted investors from across the country.
He pointed out that the solar power plant would also reduce the IMC’s monthly electricity bill for supplying drinking water to Indore households.
“Using conventional electricity, the IMC presently spends about Rs 25 crore every month on electricity to pump Narmada river water from Jalud to Indore, for household supply”, Bhargava informed.
“By utilising the power generated at the Jalud solar plant to supply water, the IMC will be able to save nearly Rs 5 crore each month”, the Indore Mayor said.
Bhargav expressed happiness that IMC is the first urban local body in the country to set up a renewable energy plant funded through green bonds.
“The plant is almost ready. In the final stage, its charging test will begin, and transmission line issues will be resolved. Water supply to Indore from this plant will commence in November this year,” Bhargava stated.
The ‘green’ journey began in 2023 when IMC’s green bond was listed on the NSE on 21 February that year.
The then Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, had symbolically rung the NSE bell to announce the formal listing of the IMC’s green bond on the stock exchange.
Subsequently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually carried out the Bhoomi Pujan (ground-breaking ceremony) of the solar power plant on 25 December 2023, during the first public function held by the present BJP State Government led by Dr Mohan Yadav, after it regained power in Madhya Pradesh in December 2023.
Driven by the tireless efforts of the IMC, Indore city has bagged the award of being the cleanest city in India for eight years in a row, from 2017 to 2025, in the ‘Swachch Sarvekshan Awards’ (Cleanliness Survey Awards) under the ‘Swachch Bharat Mission’ (Clean India Mission).
It is a national campaign, launched in 2014 by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, to promote sanitation, cleanliness, and waste management in urban areas of India.