India's "solar mission"

A year ago India announced that solar power would be a major part of its climate action plan but between then and now, other than some project announcements, we haven't heard all that much. But now Worldwatch Institute reports that Indian newspaper The Hindu has seen a draft copy of a national solar power plan which seriously ups the ante:

According to the leaked document, India's "solar mission" will include measures for rapidly expanding the use of small-scale photovoltaic panels, solar lighting systems, and commercial-scale solar plants, in order to drive down costs and encourage domestic solar manufacturing. The efforts would occur in both rural and urban areas and target residential as well as commercial users. The plan also proposes scaling-up centralized solar thermal power generation, with the aim of achieving cost parity with conventional grid power by 2020 and the full necessary energy infrastructure by 2050.
With India's installed solar capacity currently at only 3 megawatts, this would be the most ambitious solar plan that any country has laid out so far. The scope of the initiative would also match and ultimately far exceed India's plans for nuclear power generation.

Specifically the plan aims to have 20,000 MW of solar power by 2020, expanding to 100,000 MW by 2030 and 200,000 by 2050.

Funding This All Might be the Most Ambitious Part
Which not only is "ambitious" but also going to be expensive to implement: Worldwatch cites Greenpeace's Energy [R]evolution report in saying that by 2050 India could generate 69% of its electricity and 70% of its heating and cooling needs from renewable sources, but that will require an investment of $154 billion.

In the leaked draft, government investment would amount to $18-22 million, with presumably the balance to be made up through international financing mechanisms.

More: Worldwatch Institute, The Hindu

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further pool ponderings

Pool records indicate that on Oct 20,2008 there were ten swim lessons that started at 7pm. Also at 7pm was 100 swimmers from various swim teams- Reagan 19, Columbus 17, Springs (middle?) 15, and MDAC 49. All were documented as residents in the swim lessons category like this (40)(40)(80)(80)(40) and one scratched out (40), for a total of $280. No polo or scuba. 4 aerobics noted but none charged for. Are those in parentheses for each individual lane? 6 lap swimmers were noted but there is no record of any charges, or whether they were residents or not. Are lap swimmers the swim team? or private residents? or nonresidents? At 5pm there were 10 swimmers and I guess those were the lessons. Is it possible that the teams started at 5pm too? $126 of that $286 is designated as cash; one check # 31 was for $40, another $40 check was #1856, and the last was for $80 was # 1358. Total payment was $286 on the bottom line. The transaction date was 10/22/08 and the receipt was # 1687. Zero at 6pm. There is no real reason for the pool lifeguards to get involved as this point, as we are making progress individually, and as a group. There MAY be a point somewhere in the future where their information would be helpful, but not right now so much. There's a LOT of sorting out to be done first. Oct 15th has 98 swim team members, starting at 4:30pm and 12 swim lessons, for which check # 329 paid $60. No mention of any monies received from the swim team. 7 patrons were noted at the bottom of the log. No mention of swim team swimmers using the pool. MDAC was 54 of those 98 swimmers, Columbus 18, Springs 12, Reagan 14. Its like they didn't exist, or at least the pool rental monies didn't exist. It WAS clearly documented that they WERE there, just without any monies paid. Why?